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STORIES FROM BROWNING 



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stories from Browning 



BY 

HARVEY CARSON GRUMBINE, Ph.D. 

Professor of English in The University of Wooster , 







BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 






COPYRIGHT, I914, BY HARVEY CARSON GRUMBINE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



CAMBRIDGE , MASSACHUSETTS 

m -2 19/4 

©CIA374283 



S TO ESTELLE 



PREFACE 

These studies are in no sense meant to be a 
substitute for the poems they sketch. They are 
intended for a stimulus and a help; and if, to any 
degree, they succeed in introducing the reader to 
Browning himself and in clearing away the cryptic 
and esoteric atmosphere which too much surrounds 
the conception of his genius in the popular mind, 
they have not been written in vain. 

H. C. Grumbine. 

WoosTER, Ohio, 
February, 1914. 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION xi 

THE POWER OF MENTAL SUGGESTION 
PippA Passes 3 

CONCERNING LOVE 

Love of Honor. A Blot in the 'Scutdieon . 23 

Love of Country. Strafford .... 50 

Love and Fidelity. In a Balcony . . . 164 

The Transcending Power of Love. James 
Lee's Wife 195 

Love and Indolence. The Statue and the Bust 204 

Love and the Conventions. The Flight of the 
Duchess 208 

Love Idealized. Cristina 219 

,Love Perverted by Pride. My Last Duchess. 222 

Love Perverted by the Conventions of Re- 
ligion. Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister . 226 

CONCERNING ART 

Perfection in the Technique of Art. Andrea 
del Sarto 233 

Realism and Idealism in Art. Fra Lippo Lippi 238 



X CONTENTS 

CONCERNING FAITH 

Faith in an Ideal. A Grammarian's Funeral . 251 

Faith without Christ. Cleon . . . .254 

Faith and Doubt. Bishop Blougram's Apology 259 

Imposture and Faith. Mr. Sludge, "the 
Medium" 272 

Faith and Science. An Epistle Containing the 
Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the 
Arab Physician 287 

Faith and Theology. Caliban upon Setebos; 
or. Natural Theology in the Island . . . 294 

Faith and Heresy. A Death in the Desert . 303 

The Transcending Power op a Vision. Saul 311 

ANALYTICAL INDEX 321 



INTRODUCTION 

The business of the reader of poetry is not very 
different from that of the reader of prose. It is 
different only in the extent to which prose differs 
from poetry; and the chief difference between 
prose and poetry lies in emotional reaction and 
appeal to the imagination. But, broadly speaking, 
the same mental faculties are exercised in the read- 
ing of poetry and the reading of prose. Thus con- 
sidered, the matter sifts itself down to a question 
of psychology. While the same mental faculties 
are exercised in the reading of poetry and the read- 
ing of prose, they are exercised in different degrees, 
the difference being commensurate with the differ- 
ence in the two forms of expression. That differ- 
ence is one of emphasis and not of kind. Roughly 
speaking, the conspicuous element of prose is its 
intellectual content; while, on the other hand, the 
predominant element of poetry is its emotional 
content. 

Another way of saying the same thing, and per- 
haps a simpler way, is this : Every form of literary 
expression, whether poetry or prose, has a meaning. 
That is its one indispensable feature. That is its 
carrying quality or reason for existence. The mean- 
ing of prose, at least of its severer forms, is intel- 
lectual; the meaning of poetry is largely emotional. 
Just as the function of exposition is to make plain 



xii INTRODUCTION 

and of argumentation to convince, so the purpose 
of the lyric is to convey a mood; and this is true 
no less, and only in degree, of the epic, the tragedy, 
the comedy. The mood of the lyric is brief, but in- 
tense; the mood of epic, tragedy, and comedy is ex* 
tended and, withal, varied and sustained. It may 
then be said that the meaning of prose is first of all 
intellectual, and that the meaning of poetry is 
first of all emotional. 

We are concerned here with poetry, and with 
poetry of various kinds. We want to know how to 
read poetry. If the foregoing considerations are 
just, we are in a position to approach poetry in an 
attitude of mind that will greatly simplify matters. 
In deriving its meaning we need to make our 
mood receptive; we need to subdue our feeling to 
the feeling of the poem; we must divest ourselves of 
prejudice, of alien predisposition. In short, we must 
make ourselves, for the time being at least, a well- 
tuned instrument for the poet to play upon. 

This receptive attitude is a condition of mental 
alertness and sympathy. It puts to sleep the emo- 
tional faculty until the understanding has been 
illuminated. But the emotions, once awakened by 
a clear call of the true message of the poem, will 
contain themselves in thorough poise and discipline 
until the message has been judicially weighed and 
appraised. 

A striking proof of the emotional complexion of 
poetry is seen in that feature which, with the aver- 
age reader, serves to distinguish it from prose. 
With the world, what is rhyme and metre is by that 
very token also poetry. The reasoning is not, in the 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

long run, erroneous; for if poetry be poetry, then 
rhyme and metre are its essential characteristics, 
and are so for the reason that they are the language 
of emotion. Emotion, pure and simple, whenever 
it expresses itself without words, is rhythmical. 
Witness sobbing, laughter, and the cries of birds and 
animals. According as speech is least reasoned and 
most emotional, to that extent will it be rhythmical; 
to that extent, it may be added, will there be a 
recurrence of similar sounds, or rhymes. Does not 
laughter rhyme? Does not sobbing rhyme? Rhyme 
and metre are not ornamental adjuncts or acces- 
sories. They are an outgrowth — a natural expres- 
sion, in the literal root-meaning of the term. The 
verse of poetry proves its emotional content; and 
not only that, but that its emotional feature is its 
dominating feature. 

From these considerations it is to be gathered 
that, while the meaning of poetry is largely emo- 
tional, that meaning always has an intellectual 
basis. This is usually indicated in the title; and, 
of course, it charges every line. At places in the 
course of the poem, usually at the beginning and the 
end, or at the beginning and the end of stanzas and 
sections, it appears in the form of phrases and sen- 
tences of condensed and summarized meaning. 
These, when brought together, form the argument; 
and this, when still further condensed, constitutes 
the central idea. The orderly arrangement of the 
steps in the argument indicates the thought-pro- 
gression. This is the philosophy of the poem, or 
its teaching. This is the trunk of the tree upon 
which and from which grows its foliage, its flower 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

and fruitage of emotional appeal. To vary the 
figure, one may say that a poem should not be like 
a Christmas tree; that is to say, a dead branch 
whose tinsel and glitter is a thing superadded. The 
first thing to do in reading a poem is to see where 
the trunk is rooted; how stout and fine the trunk 
and branches are; how symmetrically they are 
formed. The next thing to do is to climb the trunk 
and branches for their flowers and fruit. 

"Pippa Passes," one of Browning's most pleas- 
ing poems, may serve as a specific case. The intel- 
lectual element of this "drama" is to be extracted 
by applying to it such questions as the following: 
What is the significance of the title "Pippa Passes "? 
In what respects is this poem a "drama"? What is 
its story? What is its central idea? By what tech- 
nical means is the central idea developed? The emo- 
tional values of the poem are to be appreciated by 
appraising the central idea for its justice and pro- 
priety; by appraising the portraiture of character 
for its life-likeness, or verisimilitude; by analyzing 
the technique of plotting, the apportionment and 
emphasis of the material, the creation and satis- 
faction of the feeling of suspense; by weighing the 
verbal and metrical adroitness, by noting the nov- 
elty of execution, and the muscular temper of the 
author's personality. These questions will not be 
answered seriatim, but in block, or somewhat in the 
order in which they present themselves to the 
discerning reader. 



The Power of Mental Suggestion 






PIPPA PASSES 

The Power of Mental Suggestion 

The "Introduction" to this drama is a song by 
Pippa "a girl from the silk-mills" of Asolo. It is 
New Year's Day, and, as she sings, she springs out 
of bed. The sun is rising. It is her one and only 
holiday of the year. What shall she do with it? 
How shall she use it? She resolves to make it an 
inspiration for the whole year round. Her plan is 
to impersonate the happiest persons in Asolo. 
Ottima and Sebald shall have her morning; Jules 
and Phene shall have the noonday; Luigi and his 
mother, the evening-time; and Monsignor, the night. 
Ottima and Sebald are happy lovers; Jules and 
Phene are bride and groom, and this is their wed- 
ding-day; Luigi and his mother are a pattern of 
true contentment; and Monsignor is a holy man 
of God — an ensample of divine peace. The sun 
has risen and casts a bright reflection on the ceiling 
of her bedroom from the water in her ewer. How 
the sunbeam breaks and dances as she pours the 
water and laves face and hands ! How brightly it 
lightens her turban-flowers in the window, caus- 
ing each blossom to laugh through the pane and 
solicit the bee ! Her thoughts revert to the Jiappiest 
in Asolo. She will be no less loved this day than 
happy Ottima in the great stone house, all glass 
in front, on the hillside yonder, where Sebald is 



4 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

wont to steal for clandestine assignations while old 
Luca, her husband, yet reposes; and, like Ottima, 
she, too, will "face the spitefullest of talkers" in 
the town. But this is a foolish love, and "only 
day's first ojffer." It is better to be the chaste bride 
Phene to the bridegroom Jules, coming out of 
Passagno church at noon and faring toward their 
house that "looks over Orcana valley" — Phene, 
with "pale snow-pure cheek and black bright 
tresses, blacker than all except the black eyelash," 
"flower-like" Phene! 

Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness. 
Keep that foot its lady primness. 
Let those ankles never swerve 
From their exquisite reserve! 



But 



Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their wives. 
And only parents' love can last our lives. 



She will enjoy the mother-love for Luigi, watching 
mother and son repair at eve to a 

ruined turret, where they talk, 
Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than friends. 

But best of all is God's love. Why should not God's 
love befall? That will be reserved for the night, 
when that "holy and beloved priest," Monsignor, 
comes to "the Palace by the Dome" to "bless the 
home of his dead brother." This is her resolve; and 
she hallows it with the thought that 

All service ranks the same with God. 

Oh yes ! God will bless her on this holiday. So she 
sallies forth, singing, and possessed of the sweet 



PIPPA PASSES 5 

assurance that she, no doubt, will be as "useful to 
men and dear to God as they," the happiest lovers 
and the most beloved in Asolo. 

The scene shifts to the interior of old Luca's 
shrub house, where are Luca's wife, Ottima, and 
her paramour, the German Sebald. Sebald sings 
a drinking song. All is dark inside save f or a " blood- 
red beam through the shutter's chink." They grope 
their way to the window, half hid by tall geraniums. 
They push back the lattice to let in the day, and 
look at the familiar prospect of hills and a brook 
in the foreground, of Saint Mark's, Padua, and 
Vicenza in the far distance. Presently Sebald 
espies the plant he "bruised in getting through the 
lattice yestereve"; and his "elbow's mark i' the 
dust o' the sill"; and his guilt seizes him. 

Say, once and always, Luca was a wittol, 
I am his cut-throat, you are . . . 

Ottima offers him wine, white and black. But he 
spurns the black for the horror of its color. It re- 
minds him of the clotted blood of his victim. 
Presently there appears outside Benet theCapuchin, 
"with his brown hood and bare feet," trudging on 
his business from the Duomo. — No, not the bloody 
wine, but the white! They fall to a rehearsal of 
the ways in which they used to trick the doting old 
husband, Luca Gaddi. Remorse again overtakes 
Sebald, and this time loathing for her who spurred 
him on to the murder. She proposes that they go 
in and lift the body from the place where it fell. 
She dresses her hair in the dusty pane for a looking- 
glass and, displaying her naked beauty, tries to 



e STORIES FROM BROWNING 

rouse him from the depths of his remorse. He would 
give her neck, each splendid shoulder, both those 
breasts of hers, if this murder were undone and 
Luca alive again. As a poor, starved music teacher 
he had first come to the house — had been fed there 
and clothed. And then this guilt. He would com- 
mit ten crimes greater, so this crime were wiped 
out. But, urges Ottima, were not our joys worth 
it — our wild ecstasies one glad July night? She 
presses against him. Her hair falls. He does it 
up, is crowning her with it his "spirit's arbitress," 
when — Pippa passes without, singing, — 

God 's in his heaven — 
All's right with the world. 

Another wave of remorse, revealing Ottima in 
all her wicked horror, sweeps over him. He will 
pay the price of his crime. God 's in his heaven ! 
She pleads that he kill her first. But he expires 
amid her prayers. 

The morning is passing into noon, and Pippa is 
passing from the scene of the suicide to Orcana. 
Foreign students of painting and sculpture, from 
Venice, are assembled opposite the house of Jules, 
a young French statuary, at Passagno. It is the 
wedding-day of Jules and Phene. It is ten o'clock, 
and the marriage is now taking place in the church 
near by. Among the students are .Gottlieb and 
Schramm. They have hidden themselves, one be- 
neath a window, three or four others behind a 
pomegranate clump, and another in the balcony. 
They are talking excitedly about a trap they have 
set for Jules. Accessory to the plot is a rhyming 



PIPPA PASSES 7 

rake, an Englishman, Bluphocks by name, who now, 
however, is absent. Another rhymester, Lutwyche, 
a painter, is among the company. Their purpose 
here is to witness the cHmax of a heartless practical 
joke they have concocted, of which Jules is the butt 
and Phene the helpless accomplice. Phene is a 
Greek model and purports to be the daughter of 
Natalia, procuress of models and vice. But Jules 
has been kept in ignorance of the girl's shame; 
and she, having no soul, is unmindful of it. The 
students are envious of their fellow, Jules, whom 
they take to be an ineffectual prig, but who has 
incurred their dislike as much by shunning their 
"debasing habits" as by his romantic aspirations in 
art. By forged letters, which appear to have come 
from Phene and which paint the supposed writer 
as a devotee of art and devoted admirer of Jules's 
statues, they have tricked the young sculptor into 
an agreement to marry his imagined admirer. He 
is to "wed her on trust," and only to speak to her 
after marriage. In her young beauty — she is but 
fourteen — he sees the realization of his artistic 
ideals; and she, being of extreme simplicity of mind, 
proves a pliant tool in the hands of Natalia and the 
students. The marriage over, they return to Jules's 
studio, hand in hand. He shows her his books and 
statues and his great love for his work. Frightened 
by her blank unresponsive mien, he bids her speak to 
him, and is astounded to find her outward beauty 
unmatched by a soul. She speaks as prompted 
by the students, repeating a cynical rhyme by 
Lutwyche, which reveals the detestable fraud. 
Jules is about to dismiss her with gold — to the 



8 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

end, he declares, that thereby she keep herself 
"out of Natalia's clutches." He will go to Venice 
to root out the "gang" who have tricked him. 
Now he must leave her, perhaps forever, yet per- 
haps — if he survive — to meet her again, "since the 
world is wide." Just then, Pippa passes, singing a 
song of pure ennobling love; and, in a flash, his 
purpose changes. He will be the uplifting influence 
which the song celebrates; he will evoke from Phene 
a soul. She shall be his Psyche, not of marble, but 
of flesh and spirit. He will begin Art afresh and be 
a sculptor of the soul. 

Pippa now passes from Orcana to the Turret. 
Two or three of the Austrian Police are seen loiter- 
ing with Bluphocks, an English vagabond, just in 
view of the Turret. It has grown evening. The 
Police are there on the lookout for Luigi, suspected 
of being in league with the Carbonari. Bluphocks 
is there in their service, and also on a mission of 
his own, given him, he avers, by the Bishop's In- 
tendant of the Duomo. He has seen Pippa pass; 
and it is for her that he has been watching with 
a "pocket-full of zwanzigers." He is a cynical dog; 
atheist, too; and rhymester of irreverent quips. 
His business is to seduce Pippa, pretty little silk- 
weaver of Asolo, to the Intendant's guilty ends. 
The Police withdraw to examine Luigi's passport, 
to which is added in cipher a warrant for his arrest. 
Bluphocks, also their spy, makes a signal; and 
Luigi, with his mother, is seen entering the Turret 
on the hill. 

All is hushed. The echoes deal weirdly with their 
voices. Dusk shadows assume to Luigi's sick im- 



PIPPA PASSES 9 

agination the forms of the Carbonari conspirators. 
There, too, shines the face of old Franz, the Aus- 
trian king. "Come down and meet your fate," 
cries Luigi. The mother protests, trying to dis- 
suade him from his purpose of assassination. No, he 
repHes; "lam rich, young, healthy." I have been 
feasted and fortunate. The more reason I should 
go and do it. . . . " Too much have I enjoyed these 
fifteen years of mine, to leave myself excuse for 
longer life." He will trust to his youth, his fine dress. 
Unaccompanied, he will pass unsuspected to the 
royal presence in Vienna and avenge for his parti- 
sans the Austrian tyranny. Chiara will come in 
June, pleads the mother; she will come as she 
promised. And the boy is about to yield to this 
soft persuasion; but at that moment is heard from 
without the voice of Pippa singing of a king great 
and just, who ruled in a far-past golden age, sup- 
pressing wrong and basking in the love of all good 
men. Luigi is resolved. Tyranny, as he sees it, 
must be wiped out; and he goes to do the deed. 

The dusk darkens into night. Pippa is passing 
"from the Turret to the Bishop's Brother's house, 
close to the Duomo S. Maria," where some poor 
girls are sitting on the steps. The girls are ex- 
changing wishes. One would have wings like a 
swallow and fly away. Another relates how she has 
been feasted by a graybeard older than her grand- 
father and how he laughed to see her write bad 
names on the table with a finger dipped in wine; 
she would have the experience repeated. Another 
has her turn; she would be back at the old cottage 
home in the country, with new milk to drink, apples 



10 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

to eat, and plenty of sleep. They have been sta- 
tioned there at the Intendant's orders to lure 
Pippa into conversation, until Bluphocks shall come 
to carry out his work of seduction. 

Monsignor, the Bishop, has fallen heir to the 
Palace by the Duomo and has come to visit it. For 
his reception Maffeo the Intendant has prepared a 
feast. There are many gentlemen in waiting, but 
these are soon dismissed in order that certain sus- 
picious accounts of the estate may be sifted. Mon- 
signor is the youngest of three brothers and the 
last of a line of vicious and unprincipled noblemen; 
but from his boyhood he lived apart from his fam- 
ily, in the service of the church. The accounts 
show a suspiciously large sum paid the Intendant 
on a certain third of December by the late incum- 
bent in the estate, Monsignor's elder brother. Mon- 
signor would have that point cleared up. More- 
over, there was a child, born fourteen years before 
to Monsignor's eldest brother, barring the late 
incumbent from the succession. What has become 
of that child .f^ How has Maffeo come into posses- 
sion of the wealth which to all appearances is his 
— a certain villa, a certain podere — in addition 
to the moneys which the accounts disclose .^^ He is 
cautioned to confess and to confess quietly, as he 
must sooner or later, since the Pontiff, Monsignor's 
superior, enjoins not only Maffeo's arrest and pun- 
ishment but, "as guardian of the infant's heritage 
for the Church," the recovery of that heritage par- 
cel by parcel, by every searching means. Was the 
child murdered.? And by whom? And why.? Was 
she murdered in infancy by Maffeo at the instiga- 



PIPPA PASSES 11 

tion of Monsignor's late brother? The next room is 
filled with men awaiting a signal from Monsignor, 
and Maffeo may as well confess quietly. "Did you 
throttle or stab my brother's infant? Come now!" 
By one desperate ruse the Intendant tries to es- 
cape. Monsignor is not the simple dolt his late 
brother was. Maffeo knows that — has known it 
all along; and, instead of playing to Monsignor 's 
advantage as well as to the advantage of Monsig- 
nor's late brother, by murdering the infant, Maffeo 
has had her brought up in secret, and her name is 
Felippa, "a little black-eyed pretty singing Fe- 
lippa, gay silk- winding girl." Monsignor certainly 
cannot succeed to the estate — not now. But — 
in consideration of undisturbed possession of his 
"present havings and holdings," for which he has 
the late incumbent's "hand and seal," and in con- 
sideration also of his unhindered escape across the 
Alps, Maffeo engages to make way with the girl 
— not in the ordinary manner, but in a way quite 
as efficacious: "At Rome the courtesans perish off 
every three years, and I can entice her thither — 
have indeed begun operations already." The ab- 
ductor has been engaged in the person of Bluphocks, 
who poses as an English nobleman; and his ac- 
complices — certain loose women — have been ar- 
ranged for. "Is it a bargain?" ... At this junc- 
ture Pippa passes, singing of her childhood and her 
trust in God. The horror of the proposal over- 
whelms whatever disappointment Monsignor may 
have felt at Pippa's survival. Springing up quickly, 
he summons his guards from their station in the 
next room to bind the villain hand and foot: and 



12 STORIES FROM BROT\nS[ING 

Monsignor, whom Pippa thinks "holy," is delivered 
from a great temptation. 

Pippa's holiday is over. She reenters her room, 
musing on her New Year experiences. The girls' 
coarse chatter by the Duomo steps about Blu- 
phocks's alleged preference for her and his presents, 
should she have him, rings in her ears; then the 
to-do of the Intendant's arrest recurs to her mind. 
How foolish, she thinks, her effort to imagine the 
lives of those others whom she took to be the hap- 
piest. But she must be content and go to rest. Even 
her flowers are asleep. And amid confused visions 
of the day's happenings and a fading consciousness 
of the day's failure as compared with her bright 
aspirations, she prays — 

God bless me! ... 

All service ranks the same with God. 

This bald narrative brings to the surface a num- 
ber of things. It easily answers the question con- 
cerning the significance of the title, "Pippa Passes." 
She passes out of her plain little room early on the 
morning of New Year's Day to do her best for her 
own happiness in the sight of God. She will make 
that best a service to God. For a moment she passes 
into the guilty life of Ottima and Sebald, and 
serves God by quickening their consciences. This 
happens in the early morning. At noon, passing 
into the life of Jules, she fires him with sudden 
resolve to evoke a soul and fashion love. At eve- 
ning, passing into the life of Luigi, the Carbonari 
conspirator, she electrifies into quick action his 
plot against the Austrian government. At night. 



PIPPA PASSES IS 

passing the window where the Bishop's Intendant 
is carefully planning her shame and ruin, she 
sings the song of her own innocence, and strength- 
ens Monsignor the Bishop in the moment of his 
temptation. 

The central idea and purpose of the poem may 
be gathered up in these sentences: God overrules 
all things for the best. "God's in his heaven — 
all's right with the world. . . . All service ranks 
the same with God." A life of innocence and pur- 
ity is a powerful, though an unconscious influence 
in the lives of others. 

The poem is a drama, as the sub-title states; 
but a drama in a peculiar sense. In the intro- 
duction and conclusion it is a lyrical soliloquy, 
and not, like so many of Browning's other poems, — 
"Saul," for instance, — a dramatic lyric or mono- 
logue. But the dramatic element is featured by the 
impassioned dialogue of the ensuing four acts; it is 
featured still further by the play of varied and 
contrasted feeling on the part of the dramatis 
personce, that feeling ranging from the illicit lust 
of Ottima and Sebald to its eventuation in murder 
and suicide; from the horse-play of the foreign 
students with Jules and Phene, to Jules's heroic 
resolve; from the aiffectionate concern of Luigi's 
mother for his safety, to his fanatical self-sacrifice 
for the Carbonari; from the vicious sacrilege of 
Bluphocks the pander, to the loose talk of the girls 
at the Duomo; from the rascality of Maffeo the 
Intendant, to Monsignor's deliverance from a great 
temptation. Most dramatic of all, productive as it 
is of amazed wonder at the ways of unsophisticated 



14 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

innocence on the one hand and the sad, bad ways 
of the world on the other, is the contrast between 
Pippa's unspoilt idealization of the "happiest in 
Asolo " and their real sinful or unhappy character. 
To this we assent as a truth of life. To offset this^ 
and to hearten us, is the teaching of the uncon- 
scious power of innocence. We assent to this teach- 
ing with a feeling of deep satisfaction. We are en- 
listed on the side of the abiding and triumphant 
moral forces of the world. In a word, the poem 
stirs us deeply and leaves us edified and fortified 
in our views of life. To say that we have been thus 
stirred is to point out the emotional dynamic of the 
poem. 

The aesthetic elements of a poem (and we might 
say broadly, of anything) are closely bound up with 
their intellectual elements on the one hand and 
their emotional elements on the other. Is it not true 
that what strikes the mind as just, proper, and 
felicitous in form and structure — in the arrange- 
ment of parts, in the creation of suspense, in char- 
acter-portrayal, in motivation of incident and 
situation — solicits our admiration.^ And is it not 
true that admiration is a pleasant feeling? What, 
then, are the aesthetic values of complete efficiency .^^ 
Efficiency is a thing perceived and amenable to 
exposition; and the clearer the perception, the 
greater the delight attending it; and the greater 
the efficiency, the keener the aesthetic rapture re- 
acting upon the perception of it. 

In "Pippa Passes" there is not, it is true, the 
same chain of causation in the flow of incident that 
we find in one of Shakespeare's great tragedies 



PIPPA PASSES 15 

or comedies — "Othello" or "As You Like It"; 
which is to say that the sequence of incidents is 
not inevitable. It is not a matter of necessity that 
Pippa's singing should cause Sebald's suicide, 
Jules's self-effacement, Luigi's patriotic resolve, 
Monsignor's withstanding of temptation. But 
these things are highly probable; and it is satisfy- 
ing to see that they are so. 

The same is true of the characterization. The 
remark of Edmund Clarence Stedman ^ that 
"Pippa reasons like a Paracelsus in pantalets," is 
a just remark; but, since the influence of inno- 
cence as pictured is highly probable, her precocious 
moralizing is not disconcerting even to the strictest 
realist. 

Not on the side of lack in verisimilitude, then, 
is the poem deficient. Whatever deficiency may 
appear in individual characterization is abundantly 
made up — is far overbalanced — by the life-like 
portrayal of a group of characters; as well as by the 
portrayal of a tense psychological moment with 
the individual. 

Take the latter case first. In each of the four 
stories — first, that of Ottima and Sebald; second, 
that of Jules and Phene; third, that of Luigi and his 
mother; fourth, that of Monsignor and the Intend- 
ant — it is the climax that is presented; and it is 
not a train of physical incidents that is portrayed, 
but a psychological situation. And the portrayal 
is human and thoroughly life-like. 

What constitutes life-likeness in the depiction 
of a group of characters .^^ Do men when thrown to- 

* Victorian Poets, p. 318. 



16 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

gether act and speak as if with a preconceived pur- 
pose and looking forward to a foregone conclusion? 
So they seem to do in "Hamlet," "Lear," and 
"Othello." In Shakespeare at his best there are 
few loose ends of dialogue and incident. And that 
is well, since the plot is the principal thing in the 
plays. In "Pippa Passes," on the other hand, 
there are some touches that appear to be wholly 
episodical. And they are acceptable on the grounds 
hinted at : the poem is not the unraveling of an in- 
tricate plot; it is rather the elaboration of a state 
of mind. Life is not a plot, but a mingled web of 
many irrelevancies. So is thought. So is feeling. 
What but to suggest something of this can be the 
purpose of Bluphocks's agile rhyming, and of the 
idle chatter of the girls on the steps of the Duomo? 
It is precisely touches like these which accomplish 
verisimilitude by suggesting a transcript of hetero- 
geneous life. Consequently, the poem reads like 
conversation overheard. And the reader feels him- 
self to be what in life he nearly always is, not a 
creator of the destinies of others, but a looker-on, 
an eavesdropper, a receiver of stolen gossip. 

The careful reader of "Pippa Passes" observes 
readily that he is not dealing with a plot in the or- 
dinary sense of the word. The fate of Ottima, of 
Phene, of Luigi, of Monsignor — the "Happiest 
Four" in Asolo — do concern him immensely; but 
it is the fate of Pippa that concerns him most of all. 
And his interest broadens and deepens as the day 
wears on, and the impact of her life upon those 
others is sensibly felt. How shocking, and yet edi- 
fying, is the contrast of her trust in their superior 



PIPPA PASSES 17 

happiness with the reahty in each case. What a 
rehef to find her safe in her room and still unsus- 
pecting and unharmed by the sinister machinations 
of Maffeo and Bluphocks at the close of the day. 
Our relief is the evidence of our concern, our sus- 
pense. 

But this is not all. In her case there is a chain of 
the day's doings; and we follow it climactically to 
the end. In each of the four other stories we know 
nothing of the incidents antecedent to the climax. 
Yet we derive a knowledge of them as we overhear 
the dialogue — on the fly, so to speak. This de- 
riving is a process of inference; of piecing together 
this detail with that detail let drop in the conversa- 
tion. At the end of the chapter the whole situation 
lies clear in our minds; and we congratulate our- 
selves upon our ingenuity. That is Browning's 
way of creating and feeding suspense. And, after 
all, that, with his vigorous, muscular phraseology 
and his hopeful philosophy, is his chief source of 
pleasure to his readers. 

The quality of a writer's style not unusually 
manifests itself in the imagery he employs; and this, 
in turn, appears in two ways : either as an organic 
part of the thought-progression; or as efflorescent 
ornamentation. One needs but to cite an epic 
poem for illustration. Here the narrative unfolds 
itself in a panorama of pictures. These, conse- 
quently, are organic. Furthermore, there is the 
elaborated comparison — often so elaborated as to 
form a detached picture. The episodical similes of 
Homer, Spenser, Milton, are too familiar to require 
citation. The series of pictured situations that make 



18 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

up the narrative of "Pippa Passes" have already 
been presented at some length. Of distinctly epi- 
sodical, or Homeric, similes or pictures, there are 
none in this poem. But of dynamic descriptive 
touches, both in figure of speech and in direct 
speech, there is no lack. And all is organic. There 
is little of the adventitious. 

Note how characteristically the poet feels as well 
as sees the daybreak as it bursts into Pippa's 
room : — 

Day! 

Faster and more fast. 
O'er night's brim, day boils at last: 
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim 
Where spurting and suppressed it lay. 

But forth one wavelet, then another, curled. 
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed. 
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast 
FHckered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed 
the world. 

The sun is no motiveless mechanism, but a symbol 
if not an instrument of passion. Later it serves to 
light up the interior of the room, and, doing so, 
to paint the salient features of it — the ewer and 
basin, the martagon, the bee outside — with the 
same unity of feeling, the same relish and glow of 
desire. The rhetoricians will at once recognize this 
as a high form of pathetic fallacy. But then, we 
might ask, what human view of things is not a form 
of that figure.^ And we might add that anthropo- 
morphism in all its phases is but an all-embracing 
effort of the soul to project itself everywhere and 
seize upon everything as its own. 



PIPPA PASSES 19 

When the sun breaks through a chink in the shut- 
ter upon Ottima's guilty gaze, it is "blood-red." 
The shutter is opened. Ottima asks that it be 
closed. 

Sebald. Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood here. 
Foul as the morn may be. 

"His blood," repeats Sebald in an agony of re- 
morse. Ottima offers wine. Will he have white or 
black? He spurns the bloody. 

This is a fine instance of that operation of the 
imagination whereby the emotions color what they 
seize upon. 

Exquisite pictures, which are thus not diffuse 
transcripts from life but polarized points of sug- 
gestive power, occur again and again to make the 
narrative real and live. 

Country girls 
Were noisy, washing garments in the brook, 
B^nds drove the slow white oxen up the hills. 

There trudges on his business from the Duomo 
Benet the Capuchin, with his brown hood 
And bare feet. 

The guilty tryst of Sebald and Ottima in a wood 
during a thunder-storm — their embrace, as they 
lay, rising and falling with impassioned breath, 
assumes an almost morbid interest in these electric 
lines : — 

Swift ran the searching tempest overhead; 

And ever and anon some bright white shaft 

Burned through the pine-tree roof, here burned and there. 

As if God's messenger through the close wood screen 

Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, 

Feehng for guilty thee and me. 



go STORIES FROM BROWNING 

The net result of this examination is, then, as 
follows: In the criticism of a poem its intellectual 
basis is the terminus a quo. Its emotional appeal 
is the terminus ad quem. Midway between these 
two points, and closely bound up with them, lie 
considerations of structure and style. The keener 
our intellectual perceptions in discerning these, 
the greater the yield of aesthetic pleasure. Esthetic 
values are, to a degree, emotional values, in that 
the emotions respond with approval and acclaim 
to what is rightly, justly, and properly done. In a 
sense, aesthetic values are also moral values; on the 
assumption, that is, that the highest art makes 
for good instead of evil; and on the further assump- 
tion that, on the whole, the good will prevail. The 
teaching of a work of art, as summarized in its 
central idea, is inevitably subject to consideration; 
and if art have no teaching, it loses value. This is 
not saying that the more direct the teaching, the 
more valuable the art. If anything is to be said on 
that score, the proposition is the commonplace 
that the less direct the teaching, the more effective 
it is, on the obvious psychological ground that men 
resent being hectored into goodness, but love to 
be persuaded. The teaching of "Pippa Passes,*' 
one of Browning's most moral poems, inculcates 
the principle of the quickening force of innocence; 
and the obvious way by which it achieves that end 
is by portraying the power of mental suggestion. 



Concerning Love 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 

Love oj Honor 



Mildred Tresham is a frail girl of fourteen; and 
Henry, Earl of Mertoun, is nearly as young as she. 
Their love, glorified by ignorance of the world 
and its ways, was their own precious secret until 
loss of innocence disturbed their dream. Now their 
sin, staring them in the face, calls out wildly for 
retribution. It is a time when crossbows, hawks, 
and greyhounds temper with the pleasures of the 
chase the routine idleness of milord and milady. 
Guendolen Tresham, a cousin betrothed to Mil- 
dred's brother Austin, and Thorold Earl Tresham, 
elder brother, and lord of the ancestral acres, love 
her only as the fair bud of innocence just burst into 
flower is loved and cherished. Family honor, the 
unblotted escutcheon of the Treshams since be- 
fore the days of Arthur and his knights, is to them 
as dear as the current of life itself. More especially 
is it the pride and stay of Earl Thorold, the present 
head of the long line of Treshams. Heraldry at- 
tests their unsullied honor, and history emblazons 
the page with unsmutched story. Their heritage is 
blotless ; it is a trust they hold sacred. 

But now a cloud settles over the ancestral hall, 
its sweeping parks and lofty yews, showing no sign 
of its gathering except in the troubled reserve of 



U STORIES FROM BROWNING 

old Gerard, an old family huntsman and warrener. 
Save for him, all is bright and fair as sunshine — 
tense expectancy and joyous hope. For Thorold 
Earl Tresham is about to return to the ancestral 
mansion with a suitor for Mildred's hand; and the 
lodge at the edge of the park is crowded with re- 
tainers in gala mood. Pursuivants and pages herald 
the train, and the waiting retainers all crowd to the 
lodge window to catch a glimpse, — all but old 
Gerard, who holds aloof, — squeezing themselves 
as if "into a mousehole" lest they "miss one con- 
gee of the least page" in the train, resplendent in 
"silk and silver." It is a brave spectacle, not least 
the three pairs of coursers drawing Earl Mertoun's 
coach, and pawing the ground with impatience as 
they slowly come. The crowd strains forward with 
sharpened curiosity; so much so that Richard, the 
master of Lord Tresham's retainers, is forced to 
advance with his white staff and motion back the 
people as the two Earls walk from the carriage to 
the Hall. Thereupon, there is a noisy shuffle from 
the window-bench in the lodge, lusty fists seize 
jugs and flagons, and hearty voices cry, — • 

Good health, long life, 
Great joy to our Lord Tresham and his House! 

Then comes another scramble, all vying one with 
another to reach the great servants' hall and hear 
the news inside. 

The two Earls enter the saloon. Austin and 
Guendolen step forward to welcome them; and 
Tresham in formal accents expresses his welcome 
to Mertoun : — 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 25 

I welcome you, Lord Mertoun, yet once more. 
To this ancestral roof of mine. Your name 
— Noble among the noblest in itself. 
Yet taking in your person, fame avers. 
New price and lustre, — (as that gem you wear. 
Transmitted from a hundred knightly breasts, 
Fresh chased and set and fixed by its last lord. 
Seems to rekindle at the core) — your name 
Would win you welcome! 

The suitor murmurs his thanks, and an intro- 
duction to Austin and Guendolen follows. In im- 
passioned speech and broken, the youthful Earl 
stammers out the purpose of his visit — to ask, 
says he, — 

A gift, which, if as calmly 't is denied. 

He must withdraw, content upon his cheek, 

Despair within his soul. That I dare ask 

Firmly, near boldly, near with confidence 

That gift, I have to thank you. Yes, Lord Tresham, 

I love your sister — as you 'd have one love 

That lady. ... oh more, more I love her ! Wealth, 

Rank, all the world thinks me, they 're yours, you know. 

To hold or part with, at your choice — but grant 

My true self, me without a rood of land, 

A piece of gold, a name of yesterday, 

Grant me that lady, and you. . . . Death or life? 

"Why, this is loving," comments Guendolen 
archly to Austin aside. "Ours must begin again." 

Meanwhile, Tresham has invited the diffident 
visitor to a seat, assuring him that "ever with best 
desert goes diffidence"; and adding that "Mildred's 
hand is hers to give or to refuse." Has Lord Mer- 
toun "seen Lady Mildred, by the way?" 

Their demesnes adjoin, is the faltering reply; he 
met her once — came upon "the lady's wondrous 



26 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

beauty unaware " while following a wounded heron 
through thicks and glades, or some eyass that 
lured him on from tree to tree — he "marked not 
whither." 

Guendolen whispers a sly rebuke to her own 
lover for being so little schooled in the language of 
love. Let him be "lessoned in the future." 

Then Tresham, gravely, — 

What's to say 
May be said briefly. She has never known 
A mother's care; I stand for father too. 
Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems — 
You cannot know the good and tender heart. 
Its girl's trust and its woman's constancy, 
How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind. 
How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free 
As light where friends are — how imbued with lore 
The world most prizes, yet the simplest, yet 
The . . . one might know I talked of Mildred — thus 
We brothers talk! 

In a word, Tresham prefers the suit as if it were 
his own. Mertoun, unwilling to waste time in dis- 
cussing anything less precious, begs to take his 
leave. One request he makes: prays Tresham 
forthwith to apprise him if the lady will appoint 
a day for him to wait on her. Tresham promises 
that a messenger shall bear her wishes as soon as 
they are learned ; and Mertoun, making his humble 
salutations, takes his leave. 

Now Thorold, turning to Guendolen and Austin, 
who have been bantering each other upon the mer- 
its of self-confidence in such a suit, demands their 
praises of the suitor, whom he, for his part, para- 
gons with all patterns of excellence. They must aid 



A BLOT m THE 'SCUTCHEON 27 

him. Mildred is in the library, no doubt; and 
thither they must go at once to find her. She must 
be prevailed upon to receive her lover soon — to- 
morrow, or the next day at the farthest. "Get 
her to say * To-morrow,'" importunes Tresham of 
Guendolen — 

and I'll give you . . . 
I'll give you black Urganda, to be spoiled 
With petting and snail-paces. Will you? Come! 

Guendolen, on her side, can see little reason for 
so much haste and admiration. Unquestionably 
the youth lacks sadly in wit — except only as he 
knows how to flatter Thorold's abounding devo- 
tion to family pride and the niceties of its ritual. — 
But she loves Mildred and Mildred's good. 

The trio repair to the library, but, finding no 
Mildred, become involved in much talk about the 
family honor and the long line of the Treshams 
— a subject of Thorold's devoted study and in- 
vestigation — as compared with the lineage of the 
Mertouns. The afternoon wears away in this dis- 
cussion, Guendolen taking such opportunities as 
offer to satirize the obsession. At length she es- 
capes, leaving the brothers deep in the subject in 
the library, and goes to seek Mildred in her room 
at the top of a long flight of stairs. The room 
faces the park and an avenue of tall yew trees. A 
"painted window" looks out upon the park; and 
the branches of a giant yew tree brush against it. 
Its varied panes color the moonlight that penetrates 
the dark chamber. A small lamp is suspended be- 
fore the Virgin's image in the window, and Guen- 
dolen finds Mildred seated before it. 



28 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

A look of preoccupation on the girl's face prompts 
Guendolen to give loose rein to the light volubility 
of her tongue. After climbing so far and leaving 
behind such futile talk as "Lord Mertoun's pedigree 
before the flood," and the color of his eyes, — 
whether gray or blue, — surely she does not deserve 
this rude dismissal. Mildred protests that she 
means no harm, and Guendolen goes on with merry 
banter, half tender and half teasing. Would she 
know? — it is settled that "the Earl has soft blue 
eyes!" Mildred has no ears for banter, but would 
know, seriously, how her brother Thorold received 
Lord Mertoun. Did he receive him well? 

**If I said only *weir I said not much," is Guen- 
dolen's teasing rejoinder. But — "Thorold is 
too proud by half." True, he is gentle and loved by 
his retainers — so loved that the least of them would 
die for him. In the world, too, Thorold's name 
stands for "the perfect spirit of honor." Yet he is 
not content, but ever brooding over 

The light of his interminable line. 
An ancestry with men all paladins, 
And women all . . . 

But Mildred, more impatient at every word, 
urges the lateness of the hour. She is weary and 
would rest. The merry teaser bids good-night. Yet 
one more sally — She said, did she not, "how grace- 
fully his mantle lay beneath the rings of his light 
hair"? 

"Brown hair," corrects Mildred decisively. 

Guendolen is puzzled. How did Mildred know 
that? And Mildred, in utter confusion, pleads 
again to be left alone. 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 29 

At length, Guendolen, asking forgiveness, goes. 
But, suddenly turning in the doorway, she sends 
this parting shot : A flaw in Mertoun's lineage dis- 
covered at last! 

Thorold finds 
— That the Earl's greatest of all grandmothers 
Was grander daughter still — to that fair dame 
Whose garter slipped down at the famous dance ! 

The gay laughter finds no response in Mildred's 
unconcern. "Is she — can she be really gone at 
last?" How her heart flutters! With an effort she 
hastens to the window and lifts the small lamp 
suspended before the Virgin's image and places it 
by the purple pane. With a sigh of relief she re- 
turns to the seat in front. Misgiving of the happy 
issue of Mertoun's visit to Thorold that morning 
numbs her young heart. There is a rustle of the 
yew-boughs without. The window opens softly, 
and a low voice sings : — 

There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the 
purest; 

And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's 
the surest: 

And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of 
lustre 

Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild- 
grape cluster, 

Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted 
marble : 

Then her voice's music . . . call it the well's bubbling, the 
bird's warble! 

And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights 

were moonless. 
Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's 

outbreak tuneless. 



30 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

If you loved me not!'* And I who — (ah, for words of flame!) 

adore her, 
Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her — 

A figure, wrapped in a mantle, enters singing, and 
approaching her seat, bends over her. 

I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me. 
And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she 
makes me! 

The slouched hat and long cloak are cast aside, 
and the Earl stands before her. As he has been 
singing, so his very heart sings: the dreadful meet- 
ing withThorold is over; happiness, a long happi- 
ness, to "exceed the whole world's best of blisses," 
has begun. At last, he urges, he has gained her 
brother. 

"Sin has surprised us, so will punishment," fal- 
ters Mildred, protesting. But come what will, they 
have been happy. So much, at least, is true. 

The crisis will soon be over, says Mertoun. 

Over? Shall she receive in presence of them all 
the partner of her guilty love, with base dissimula- 
tion, with cheek that looks a virgin's but is not.^^ 
No, "some fierce leprous spot will mar the brow's 
dissimulating! " The smooth speeches got by heart 
will be forgotten in frenzy ahd shame, and the 
"woeful story" will press to her lips for utterance, 
confounding all. Shall she draw this vengeance 
down and have it over that way? She will not 
"affect a grace that's gone from" her beyond 
recovery. 

Mertoun offers to renounce his pact with Thorold. 
Time will find some easier way. 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 31 

No, says Mildred, shamed; she will meet them, 
but not to-morrow, only not to-morrow. Together 
they pace the chamber, as with fervid words he 
pleads their ignorance of their "own desires," and 
her purity even in the requital of his love. Surely 
it were to "lie to God" to say that knowingly they 
erred. No, they will love on. For a little his flower 
lies crushed. But he will nurse it back to bloom 
and wear it as a fight-mark in his crest. 

Mildred is comforted; and so, with her lover's 
warm words soothing her spirit, she would say 
good-night — she will sleep well. He must go now. 

But he would know about to-morrow. This, 
surely, is not their last meeting? 

"One night more." 

And then? 

Then? Why, then no more "sweet courtship- 
days," — 

No dawning conscioiLsness of love for us. 

No strange and palpitating births of sense 

From words and looks, no innocent fears and hopes. 

Reserves and confidences : morning's over! 

But Mertoun: 

How else should love's perfected noon -tide follow? 
All the dawn promised shall the day perform. 

Yet Mildred is only half reassured. Returning 
his farewell, she bids him be cautious in descend- 
ing. — To-morrow they will meet again. — Did 
no one observe him as he scaled the walls? 

His foot is on the yew-tree bough : the turf 
Receives him: now the moonlight as he runs 
Embraces him . . . 



32 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

She must not stop him. And now he is gone. — No, 
he turns to throw her kisses. — He is gone. 

Leaving the window, she tries to fortify herself 
with the thought of pardon. She was "so young," 
she "loved him so," she "had no mother, God 
forgot" her, and she "fell." 

There may be pardon yet: all 's doubt beyond. 
Surely the bitterness of death is past! 



II 

The morrow has come, a cheerful day. Gerard, 
the old warrener, who for sixty years has served, 
as his father and grandfather did before him, in 
the Tresham family, meets Thorold on the grounds 
as if by accident, but really by design. For last 
night, and many times before, he has been on the 
watch and has observed the strange entry into Mil- 
dred's chamber from the giant yew that brushes 
the window with its massy arms outside; — a fig- 
ure in slouched hat and cloak, which always waits 
for a given signal and stays an hour, sometimes 
two, before emerging and descending the same way 
it cam«. 

Tresham, stunned by the disclosure, invites the 
man into the privacy of the library for a further 
explanation. Is it truth he speaks, or blackmail .^^ 

He will speak truth, protests Gerard. For sixty 
years, of all the servants he has been the trusted 
one. Night after night, each midnight for a month, 
some one has crept into Lady Mildred's chamber 
at a signal in the window. 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 33 

He runs 
Along Ihe woodside, crosses to the south, 
Takes the left tree that ends the avenue, 

climbs on the great boughs as on a platform, and 
waits. There hangs a lamp beneath a red pane in 
the middle of the painted window; and, at the hour 
of midnight, the light is moved higher up to a 
small dark blue pane. This is the signal; and, see- 
ing this, he climbs the boughs to the very top and 
throws a line that reaches to the lady's casement, 
enters, and . . . yes, stays, sometimes an hour, 
sometimes two. Gerard has seen it twenty times, 
if once. Surely an old retainer has no cause to do 
the lady wrong. Rather than that, he would suffer 
much. He has suffered the tortures of a fiery net 
about him — the tortures of indecision, of not 
knowing whither to turn. He could not remain 
disloyal to his master; he could not harm the little 
lady he has known and served so long. 

The lady could not have been seven years old 

When I was trusted to conduct her safe 

Through the deer-herd to stroke the snow-white fawn 

I brought to eat bread from her tiny hand 

Within a month. She ever had a smile 

To greet me with — she . . . 

The old man's voice breaks with sorrow. 

... I could not speak and bring her hurt 
For Heaven's compelling. But when I was fixed 
To hold my peace, each morsel of your food 
Eaten beneath your roof, my birth-place too. 
Choked me. I wish I had grown mad in doubts 
WTiat it behoved me do. This morn it seemed 
Either I must confess to you, or die: 
Now it is done, I seem the vilest worm 
That crawls, to have betrayed my lady! 



34 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

"No — no, Gerard," says Tresham. — But this 
man, what is he like? 

No vulgar hind, assures Gerard; he is armed and 
wears a sword beneath his cloak. 

Here the audience ends; and Tresham, trusting 
the old man to say no word of this, dismisses 
him. 

The Earl paces the room, trying to think. He 
cannot apprehend the "monstrous fact." He 
cannot reconcile the seeming peace of the world 
outside with the turmoil in his bosom. The story 
cannot be true. Mildred's pure cheek belies it. 
Thus beset with doubts and fears, he falls to a seat 
by the table, and sinks his head despairingly on his 
arms. 

A voice at the door rouses him. It is Guendolen's. 
She knocks and calls her cousin's name. Dissim- 
ulating his sorrow, he pulls down the first book 
above him and opens it. She has come to ap- 
prise him of her visit to Mildred last night; but, 
detecting his perturbation, she checks her voluble 
tongue to question him. Is he ill.? 

He forces a laugh to reassure her. 

She resumes her accustomed tone of banter: Has 
some blot on the young Earl's escutcheon come to 
light after all.^^ Does the "huge tome" show it? 
And was it "no longer back than Arthur's time"? 

The shaft falls, blunted by Tresham's inatten- 
tion. He would know about Mildred. — Let her 
be sent for. But seeing fire in cousin Guendolen's 
eyes, he apologizes for his heat. He is ill — has 
forgotten himself. Let Mildred be informed mildly 
that he would see her at her leisure, here in the 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 35 

library; that he has discovered at last the lost 
passage they hunted for so long in that old Italian 
book. But Guendolen, suspecting subterfuge, 
flings back, as she goes, — and more in earnest 
this time than in banter, — 

I'll die 

Piecemeal, record that, if there have not gloomed 

Some blot i' the 'scutcheon! 

For answer, Thorold bids her stand in readiness 
in the adjoining gallery, with Austin, if she chooses, 
after Mildred comes. 

Guendolen goes, and Tresham nerves himself 
to approach the matter with tact and policy. He 
must have the truth from Mildred; and he will 
have it, if he can muster cleverness enough. And 
yet, should he prove her unchaste ? . , . The 
thought confounds him in its horror. 

Mildred, entering, cannot understand what book 
she has been brought about. Not this one. This is 
Latin, not Italian, she observes, caressing her brother 
as she leans over his shoulder to see the better. 

He shudders as her warm body touches his own, 
and bids her not to lean on him so heavily; then, 
seizing a pretense, he points to a passage, reading, 
**Love conquers all things." Whose love, of all 
persons', is best? he asks gravely. Whose is the 
purest, exceeding "all the world's love in its un- 
worldliness "? Surely it is a brother's love for a sole 
sister. It has no alloy of earthliness: it claims no 
gratitude; claims no right over her save pure love's 
claim. 

Mildred's surprise betrays itself in the tremor of 
her voice. "What is this for .?" she asks. 



se STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Is there aught, he rejoins, that she would con- 
ceal from him? He bids her deny it, whatever it 
be, and he will believe her against all the world. 
But silence strikes h^r dumb through all his fer- 
vent pleading. He cannot bring himself to disturb 
his faith in her, yet — there are suspicions. Is there 
a gallant that, night by night, has admittance to 
her chamber? If so, his name! 

She makes neither denial nor confession, but only 
prays that he devise fit expiation for her guilt. Her 
spirit yearns to purge her stains. No, she will not 
assume another guilt. She cannot tell her lover's 
name. It would be bliss to die now by Thorold's 
sword. It would be a fitting punishment, but she 
cannot ask it; for what, then, would become of 
Thorold — her brother? 

What will become of him, he replies tensely, is 
seen in the shame of their fathers' accusations, 
which now rise up from the grave to smite him. 
She may wed her paramour, if she must; but 
the disgrace shall be hidden. And even he, her 
brother, will help. That is the only way now left 
to honor. One question more : What of the Earl, 
who to-morrow hastens hither for his answer? He 
has sent the Earl a letter that he present himself 
then. Let her now dictate a countermand, and it 
shall be returned at once. No, she objects; she will 
receive him, as she promised. 

Horrified at the unimagined depths to which he 
believes Mildred to have fallen, Tresham starts up 
in a fury of anger and calls for Guendolen and Aus- 
tin, who enter from their station in the corridor. He 
enjoins them to curse, as he curses, a wanton who 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 37 

fresh from last night's pledge renewed 
Of love with the successful gallant there, 
. . . calmly bids me help her to entice. 
Inveigle an unconscious trusting youth 
Who thinks her all that's chaste and good and pure. 

Her shame he could help to expiate; but to cover 
shame's dark deed with honor's self — who could 
bear this? "Thieves, stabbers, the earth's dis- 
grace," were not so sunken; 

... for this, 
I curse her to her face before you all. 
Shame hunt her from the earth! 

Mildred falls, fainting, and Tresham rushes out in 
anger and despair. 

But Guendolen divines an answer and remains 
behind to gain assurance, if she can. Austin, too, 
stays, restrained by her persuasion. Her place in 
this crisis is by Mildred's side; and where else can 
a brother's place be? Severely she rebukes his dull 
sense of honor in wishing to go; and at her compell- 
ing insistence he is induced, not unwillingly, to for- 
give — not believing, he protests, one half what he 
has heard. Together they soothe the stricken 
spirit with caresses; and Mildred, — 

I — I was so young ! 
Beside, I loved him . . . and I had 
No mother; God forgot me: so, I fell. 

Bitterly she avows the truth of all that has been. 
Her hope, now but a vanished dream, has been to 
palliate what is done. Let punishment come, and 
come quickly! Guendolen persists with gentle 
ministrations of hope and encouragement. Matters 
will soon right themselves. At Guendolen's bidding. 



38 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Austin goes to wait in the corridor; and Guendolen, 
seeing the opportunity to render a great service, 
implores her cousin for the lover's name. Perfect 
frankness will set all things right. She believes in 
Mildred thoroughly and cannot conceive that one 
so good and true can knowingly have done a great 
wrong. As for the family honor — she has heard 
enough of that. With these thoughts she sets about 
persuading her cousin to disclose the secret. 

But Mildred, plunged into the depths by the 
overwhelming sense of her guilt, cannot bring her- 
self to share the shame with her lover. Her only 
answer is, "There is a cloud around me." 

" No cloud to me ! "cries Guendolen triumphantly. 
"Lord Mertoun and your lover are the same!" — 
and she calls for Austin. Mildred must calm her 
fears; Guendolen will guard the secret. The ab- 
surdity of thinking that any such heap of irre- 
deemable sins should be of Mildred's committing! 
And what if Earl Mertoun returns to-night? 

Mildred's despair at the thought has its unequiv- 
ocal message. It resolves Guendolen, who, calling 
again for Austin, commands him, on entering, to 
make haste and find Thorold, lest in anger he do 
an irreparable injury. 

Austin reports that Thorold is gone, having dis- 
appeared across the meadow-land into the skirts 
of the beech wood. 

That is not so well. Danger lies that way. But 
there may be time to avert it. Meanwhile, Mildred 
must be taken to her room. Was not Austin right? 
He said "there was a clue to all." That is a com- 
fort, too. 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 39 

III 

Thorold, however, is not to be found. To escape 
the pursuing horror of Mildred's guilt, to lose the 
stinging consciousness of it in the heat of physical 
exertion, he has wandered far from the ancestral 
turret through the glades and dells of the Tresham 
acres, which as a boy had bewildered his adventur- 
ous step. In the blackest shades of the woodland 
the accusing presence is with him still. Only the 
bordering river turns his hastening feet, which, 
quite unconscious of their way, bring him back, 
at length, to the Hall. Night has long since fallen; 
and the avenue of yews in the park beneath Mil- 
dred's window lies before his troubled eyes. He 
curses the detested spot and its eloquent shame, 
which he has resisted in vain. At last, in settled 
despair, he yields to its call for vengeance. There 
stand the yews, those "old confederates," against 
the sky, "children of older and yet older sires" — 
a symbol of his long ancestral line — and drop their 
"living coral berries" on his coat as he passes be- 
neath them. Their admonition extends to woods, 
river, and plains; and, as the tower bell strikes the 
hour of midnight, the sudden appearance of a 
cloaked figure behind the tree trunks fixes his re- 
solution. Tresham as quickly hides behind the 
nearest yew, awaiting the next movement of the 
intruder. 

Mertoun has come for his last meeting with 
Mildred. Pushing cautiously through the ferns, he 
feels his heart bound at sight of the accustomed 
light through the red pane in Mildred's window 



40 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

at the end of the yew-tree avenue, and then sink 
into momentary dejection at the thought that to- 
night's meeting will be the last. No more shall 
he see his "lone star " rise. But he puts the thought 
away. There will be ample happiness in the future 
— the joy of nursing Mildred's desponding spirit 
back to a sense of safety and hope. 

Each day must see 
Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed: 
Then there will be surprises, unforeseen 
Delights in store. I'll not regret the past. 

He passes on to the last tree of the avenue, watch- 
ing the red light in the window; and, seeing the lamp 
rise to the purple pane, he prepares to ascend. But, 
as he clasps the trunk, an iron hand seizes him by 
the throat. He takes it for the keeper's. 

Unhand me — peasant, by your grasp! Here's gold. 
'T was a mad freak of mine. I said I 'd pluck 
A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath 
The casement there. Take this, and hold your peace. 

Tresham. Into the moonhght yonder, come with me! 
Out of the shadow. 

Mertoun. I am armed, fool! 

Tresham. Yes, 

Or no? You'll come into the light, or no? 
My hand is on your throat — refuse! — 

The familiar voice, striking at the heart of the 
younger man's fears, unnerves him completely. 
"Tresham!" he exclaims under his breath — and 
despair for Mildred strikes him dumb. He yields, 
and the pair advance into the moonlight, Mertoun 
hiding his face in the folds of his mantle. The 
words "felon," "thief," and a fierce demand for 
his "name" assail his ears; but, even so, he cannot 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 41 

speak, except to sue for forbearance. He dare not 
tell his name — for Tresham's sake. Is that white 
face inexorable still .'^ Well, then, let Tresham know. 
And Mertoun throws back his cloak. 

Tresham, after a moment of dumb surprise, 
draws his sword, directing the supplicant to defend 
himself. He rejects all proffered explanations. He 
will not listen to the least word of dissimulating 
sin! Again — will Mertoun draw? 

Mertoun cannot — for Lord Tresham's sake and 
— hers. 

The angry voice breaks out in wild and furious 
laughter. How must a "miscreant" be roused? 
Will a blow do it? Or — must one set the "foot 
upon his mouth" or "spit into his face"? 

The terrible words have beaten down every 
defense; and, committing the issue to Heaven, 
the anguished lover draws his sword at last. A few 
aimless passes, and he falls. 

Bitter remorse soon succeeds Tresham's violent 
anger, and he inquires anxiously after Mertoun's 
hurt; and Mertoun, heedless of everything but his 
own forgiveness and Mildred's welfare, sues for 
a dying man's right to defend his course — a plea 
which, before the encounter, Tresham had so ruth- 
lessly rejected. 

Tresham would go for help, but is importuned 
to stay and hear. 

Mertoun was "less than a boy" when he did the 
wrong, a grievous wrong as now he knows; but at 
the time he "knew it not" — upon his honor, he 
knew not what he did. Yet, the wrong once known, 
he had resolved to right it, had all but succeeded 



42 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

when Tresham interposed. Will Tresham forgive 
him, ere he dies? 

Solemnly Thorold declares that he forgives, and 
in his grief begs forgiveness in return. 

The boy recounts his passionate and reverent 
admiration for one so "all accomplished," so 
"courted everywhere," so much "the scholar and 
the gentleman" as Tresham; and the meeting yes- 
terday — "glorious" with "praise and gentlest 
words and kindest looks!" Even now the way of 
reparation, begun yesterday, would have had its 
happy issue. Will Tresham not tell him so.^ May 
he look up for assurance into Tresham's face.^^ He 
tries to raise himself to see, but finds a vague dim- 
ness covering his eyes. Yet does he not see a Hght 
above .^ Ah, it is Mildred's. What, now, will 
Mildred do? — Mildred, whose "life is bound up 
in the life that's bleeding fast away"! Mildred, 
who "sits there waiting" for him! Will Tresham 
carry one last message? Mertoun, dying, loves her. 

. . . Die along with me. 
Dear Mildred! 't is so easy, and you'll 'scape 
So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest. 
With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds 
Done to you? — heartless men shall have my heart. 
And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm. 
Aware, perhaps, of every blow — oh God! — 
Upon those lips — yet of no power to tear 
The felon stripe by stripe! Die, Mildred! Leave 
Their honorable world to them! For God 
We're good enough, though the world casts us out. 

A whistle is heard calling in the distance. It is 
Gerard, the warrener, whom Austin and Guendolen 
have pressed into service in their search for Thorold 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 43 

since the morning. In response to Tresham's call, 
the searchers now hasten to the scene with lights. 
They aid Tresham in raising Mertoun and, in do- 
ing so, turn his face from the lighted window. A 
passionate protest that they turn him not away 
from Mildred — and he is dead ! 

Guendolen is the first to break the silence with 
directions to Gerard to summon help, and a request 
of Austin to remain behind with Thorold until the 
help come. She will go at once to Mildred. 

But the Earl cannot suffer it so. He has a mes- 
sage from the dead boy seared upon his brain, and 
he must carry it to Mildred. He, and he only, 
must see her. 

"She will die," objects Guendolen. 

"Oh no, she will not die! I dare not hope she'll 
die," is the stern rejoinder, with the silent thought 
of his own speedy death uppermost in his mind. 
It is without a tremor that he describes Mertoun 's 
unresisting attitude in the fight — which was no 
fight at all. With equal coolness he directs Austin 
and the warrener to bear away the body. And, 
asked whither, he answers with strange meaning 
that his chamber will do very well. For when Mer- 
toun and he "meet there next," they will be 
"friends." 

For a little while he detains his cousin, asking her 
to look around upon the turf and the meadow and 
the waste, and think if ever she and Austin will 
wander to the haunted place, if they can help — 
ever so forget the dead man's breast as "carelessly 
to cross this bloody turf under the black yew 
avenue"? 



44 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

With a shudder Guendolen averts her head. 
And Tresham, turning to the "dear and ancient 
trees " his ** fathers planted " and he "loved so well," 
— dear trees, whose music in the winds he shall 
never hear again, — bids them, with the same 
strange meaning in his words, a last lingering fare- 
well. 

IV 

Mildred is waiting in her chamber, but not for 
Thorold. The signal-light still shines before the 
purple pane in the window, though the trysting- 
hour has long since passed. She sits, as has been 
her wont in waiting for her lover, in the seat before 
the Virgin's image. The Spirit of Sorrow settles 
about her with the crowding minutes, assuming 
to her tense brooding a palpable presence. Again, 
her woe takes on many forms and shapes; she sees 
them in their fury strike at and rend one another, 
leaving her a mere observer, all but dead to bear the 
supreme sorrow of her lover's absence. Were he 
seated here, as so often was his wont, they would 
now renounce their love forever, and the "thousand 
happy ways " they so often contrived of hiding their 
love "from the loveless." Her thoughts wander to 
her confession before Thorold in the library that 
fatal morning. Had she only defended herself 
then; had she urged but "some little point" in her 
defense, it might have been better, for Thorold 
was so eager for the least hint that would exonerate 
or excuse. No Henry! Has she crept out of herself 
that she can sit and look at herself — that Mildred 
who has lost her lover — and her heart not break? 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 45 

The world has forsaken her, — her lover, too ! . . . 
At last the stupor that has seized her is shaken by 
a call from her door. It is Tresham's voice saying, 
"Mildred!" 

She thanks Heaven for the merciful visitation, 
and, rising in expectation that another is waiting 
as well, welcomes her brother in. Her disappoint- 
ment starts to her lips; and, thinking again of the 
interview in the library, she begs for peace and 
"no more cursing!" 

Tresham, with a deadly pallor on his face, touches 
her tenderly and conducts her to a seat. 

Her heart sinks at the message written in his 
look; and, in a voice weakened almost to a whisper, 
she asks for his meaning — for all his thought, 
even his denunciation. 

An unexpected gentleness softens his words, 
which play sadly about the years gone by. His 
thought? — how, together, they used to search for 
water lilies in the pond, and, wading too far for the 
prize, she dared neither go on nor turn back; and 
so, "laughing and crying," stood still and waited 
for Gerard to come; then, rescued, was loudest of 
them all to reach the prize again. Strange, he says, 
"how idle thoughts are, some men's, dying men's " ! 

Mildred notes the kindness in her brother's tones. 
What does it mean? 

He is so grieved, he says, for taking a part that 
morning which was not rightly his own. He might 
have reproved her, wrung as his heart was; but it 
was not for him to do more. Will Mildred forgive 
him? 

Thorold's utter contrition starts a new fear in 



46 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Mildred's breast. What new mockery is this? And 
yet his eyes are kind. Why forgive? Her heart 
cannot contain itself, silencing all speech; and a 
mbment of tense quiet follows. 

And the signal-light still shines through the 
purple pane in the window. 

Where is Henry Mertoun to-night? Why does 
he not come? Starting up, she faces Thorold with 
the question and, seeing him mute, dashes his 
mantle aside and reads the grim answer in the scab- 
bard, which hangs empty. 

Ah, this speaks for you ! 
YouVe murdered Henry Mertoun! Now proceed! 
What is it I must pardon? This and all? 
Well, I do pardon you — I think I do. 
Thorold, how very wretched you must be! 

Her pity persuades him to speak. Henry Mertoun 
has sent a message. . . . 

But Mildred, guessing all, forbids its utterance. 
Not that ! She knows that Henry loved her and that 
his love lay on his dying lips. Must she listen and 
say "Indeed" to that? It is enough! She pardons. 

A consciousness of his approaching end speaks 
in her brother's quiet reply. He accepts her pardon 
for his harsh words; but for his deed "Another" 
is judge, whose doom he awaits "in doubt, despond- 
ency, and fear." 

Mildred rejoices in being freed from all cares at 
once. Death makes her sure of her lover forever. 
He himself shall tell her his last words; and she, 
going to him, will return her own heart's answer. 

A smile attests the gratification in the Earl's 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 47 

reply. Will Mildred die too? So Guendolen said, 
and truly. He dared not hope as much. 

She whispers a message of love to Guendolen 
and Austin, and that prompts Thorold to ask if he, 
too, may now be loved? 

The broken heart is moved to speak with keen 
reproach of the rash deed that slew her wooer while 
pleading in "his poor confused boy's-speech " their 
"love and ignorance," the "brief madness and the 
long despair," and then, "at the end, as he looked 
up for life, ... — struck him down!" 

No, Tresham admits his avenging hand knew no 
pity in its blind fury; but as the boy lay mortally 
hurt, the moonlight revealed on his flushed cheek 
— he saw it — a "depth of purity immovable." 
His own punishment's at hand. Will Mildred 
speak? She curses him? 

With a love that blots out all the past and em- 
braces both brother and lover in its ample sweep, 
Mildred advances to Thorold, saying: — 

As I dare approach that Heaven 
Which has not bade a Hving thing despair. 
Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain. 
But bids the vilest worm that turns on it 
Desist and be forgiven, — I — forgive not. 
But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls ! 

She locks her arms about his neck. 

There! Do not think too much upon the past! 
The cloud that's broke was all the same a cloud 
While it stood up between my friend and you; 
You hurt him 'neath its shadow: but is that 
So past retrieve? I have his heart, you know; 
I may dispose of it: I give it you! 
It loves you as mine loves ! Confirm me, Henry f 



48 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

With these words she dies; and the brother, ca- 
ressing the golden-tinted tresses, wishes the fleet- 
ing spirit joy in its flight, being glad in her full 
gladness. 

The silence that follows is broken by troubled 
calls from Guendolen outside. The door swings 
open, and she enters with Austin, exclaiming that 
she could "desist no longer," having known from 
the first that Mildred needed her. Seeing the limp 
form in Tresham's arms, she thinks Mildred has 
only swooned; but an exclamation from Thorold 
conveys the fact she feared, and she hastens to 
unlock the arms now lifeless in their last embrace. 
But she is checked by a pallor, whiter even than 
the dead girl's, on the Earl's face, "a froth oozing 
through his clenched teeth," and blood-marks on 
his bitten lips. 

Austin runs to support him, and bids him speak; 
and the dying voice complains that something more 
than Mildred's weight weighs down his neck. 

I said, just as I drank the poison oflF, 
The earth would be no longer earth to me. 
The life out of all life was gone from me. 
There are blind ways provided, the foredone 
Heart-weary player in this pageant-world 
Drops out by, letting the main masque defile 
By the conspicuous portal: I am through — 
Just through! 

Austin and Guendolen, soon to be Lord and Lady 
of Tresham Hall, custodians of its escutcheon and 
guardians of its honor, are enjoined, with hands 
clasped in Thorold's, to hold the escutcheon up 
free of blot or stain. They have seen "how blood 



A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 49 

must wash one blot away," how the "first blot 
came," and then the "first blood came" to cleanse 
it. There is no blot on the escutcheon now. 
Austin solemnly promises, "No blot shall come ! " 

Tresham. I said that: yet it did come. Should it come. 
Vengeance is God's, not man's. Remember me! 

[Dies, 

Guendolen. [Letting fall the pulseless arm.] Ah, Thorold, 
we can but — remember you! 



STRAFFORD 

Love of Country 
I 

It is the year 1640. In a house near Whitehall 
are assembled a company of malcontents whose 
grievances are directed against Charles and his 
Lord Deputy in Ireland, the Viscount Wentworth. 
The meeting-place is a small and obscure room, 
chosen for its nearness to the Court; and the meet- 
ing is secret — a stealthy gathering of men who 
style themselves great-hearted and patriotic. 

For ten years Parliament has been kept disbanded, 
the same Parliament that wrested the Bill of Rights 
from the reluctant King; and the company now as- 
sembled plume themselves on taking up England's 
cause where the Parliament left it. There are many 
among them of the Presbyterian Party, of whom 
John Hampden, Denzil Hollis, the younger Vane, 
Benjamin Rudyard, and Nathaniel Fiennes are 
leaders. From Scotland have come Commissioners, 
and the Earl of Loudon is the leader of these. For 
the moment the company have been diverted from 
their set purpose of drawing up a list of grievances 
by the sudden arrival at Court of the Viscount 
Wentworth from his post in Ireland. 

During these ten years there has been much un- 
rest and infinite intrigue; but the King's part in the 
drama has served only to provoke the bitter fears 



STRAFFORD 51 

of his enemies. Wentworth, formerly a trusted 
leader of the Presbyterians and, as such, one of the 
framers of the popular Bill of Rights, is reputed to 
have deserted his associates for the King and now, 
at the time of his return to Court, is suspected by 
some of them of returning solely for the purpose 
of enacting in England the same role of tyranny 
which, they declare, he has been playing so success- 
fully in Ireland. His desertion has earned him the 
opprobrious epithets of "renegade," "Haman," 
"Ahithophel" from his detractors in the assembly. 
Yet there are those in the room who refuse to be- 
lieve in his apostasy and hope soon to see him back 
among them as of old, ascribing his present con- 
duct to a mistaken sense of duty to his country and 
King. Others, believing the worst, see in his de- 
sertion only the basest motives of a traitor, his own 
personal aggrandizement. To lend color to this 
view, is recalled his prompt promotion to the Presi- 
dency of the North after having framed the "choic- 
est clause in the Petition of Right," — a promotion 
which most manifestly was meant to purchase his 
support; and his recent advancement to the Lord 
Deputyship of Ireland is to be regarded as only 
another step in the same direction. 

So think his enemies in the assembly, and of 
these the younger Vane is the most bitter and out- 
spoken. The news of Wentworth's return is so as- 
tounding that the business of receiving the report 
of the Parliament in Edinburgh through the Earl of 
Loudon as head of the Scots' Commissioners, and 
of reading the list of grievances, is set aside and 
forgotten in heated accusation on the one side, met 



52 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

by cautious retort on the other. John Pym, the 
head and front of the party, has been sent from 
their presence to verify the news; and his re- 
appearance is eagerly awaited. Meanwhile, Vane 
gives way to an impassioned arraignment of the 
"renegade" in spite of the earnest protestations of 
Denzil Hollis, brother by marriage to the Viscount 
Went worth, the astute objections of John Hamp- 
den, and the occasional, though positive, opposition 
of Nathaniel Fiennes and the Earl of Loudon. Ben- 
jamin Rudyard, on the other hand, makes a feeble 
echo to the fiery eloquence of Vane. 

To Vane's first angry outcry, Hollis cautions 
silence, at least till Pym rejoin them. England's 
fate is in the balance — that outweighs everything 
else; and he calls upon Hampden to support him in 
this contention. Let nothing be done in rashness; 
let them be still and await the event. Immediately 
he receives full in face the imputation of family 
relationship as the motive of his feelings and is 
stung into silence; but his part is at once assumed 
by Hampden, who, although he replies curtly to 
Vane, replies effectively. 

Vane with indignant irony assents to the com- 
mand of silence, but only for the moment. 

It is indeed too bitter that one man. 

Any one man's mere presence, should suspend 

England's combined endeavor. 

Whom he means is clear enough. Coolness is no 
merit, and silence no virtue, now that Wentworth 
is here and closeted with the King, he continues; 
and with rising voice and measured eloquence he 
formulates a scathing indictment of Wentworth 's 



STRAFFORD 53 

treason to England's best good, as shown in the ef- 
ficacy of his single opposition to her progress; in his 
heartening influence upon the fickle King, perfect- 
ing that King in tyranny's "dismal trade" — the 
use of scourge and screw and gag, with lessons 
taught in Ireland — new ways of "wringing treas- 
ure out of tears and blood." And to what end? 
That England may ultimately be brought to bear 
what Ireland bears now; and the King's growing ap- 
petite for power, ever more power, power even at the 
price of blood, be made insatiate. Nothing shall stay 
the flood of Vane's invective. A deprecating gesture 
from Hampden only serves to kindle more fire. 
Hampden interjects a pointed warning of the trea- 
sonable character of the words, since they arraign 
the royal person no less than the royal instru- 
ment. But oblivious to the warning. Vane launches 
into a comparison of the brave times before Went- 
worth's desertion and the pitiful changes that have 
taken place since. Then a Parliament of the 
People 

could wrest 
The Bill of Rights from the reluctant King; 
And now, he'll find in an obscure small room 
A stealthy gathering of great-hearted men 
That take up England's cause. 

The cause of England is here in this room, and not 
at WTiitehall. England herself is here. It is they, 
her friends, who have been betrayed. What treason, 
then, can lie in speech.^ 

At all events, suggests Hampden, there is little 
call for so much agitation. Does any one despair 
of England? Who? 



54 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Rudyard springs to Vane's aid with the emphatic 
declaration that he, for one, despairs of England 
"if Wentworth comes to rule her" — Wentworth, 
compared to whom her former detested masters, — 
James, Marquis of Hamilton; the "muckworm" 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Francis Lord Cotting- 
ton; and the "maniac" Bishop of papist inclina- 
tions, William Laud, — may yet be preferred and 
"longed-for back again." 

Moved to deep emotion by the support of Rud- 
yard, Vane lowers his voice and, solemnly, as if 
saying a prayer, lays open the element of weakness 
in the character of Charles, who shrinks either in 
fear or craftiness at each fresh act of tyranny; and 
Wentworth, perceiving this, heartens the monarch 
and, simulating the part of guardian and friend, 
easily compasses the ruin of England, pointing out 
where best she may be wounded. But England's 
"life is hard to take." Vane pauses, his voice 
breaking with feeling. But, applauded and urged 
on, he calls to mind Runnymead, the scene of the 
enactment of the first Bill of Rights, the great 
Magna Charta, and again paints the picture of 
Wentworth's desertion, his smiling support of the 
beckoning King, the country crouching to spring 
with them, her real friends in the League, — to 
spring upon the traitor and crush him. Calls of 
"renegade," "Haman," "Ahithophel" from here 
and there in the room prompt Hampden to turn to 
the Scots' Commissioners with the pointed re- 
minder of the unanimity of all Scots in pronounc- 
ing "the League and Covenant," the presence of 
Vane at that meeting of the League as well as this 



STRAFFORD 55 

one, and his utter silence then, "the whole night 
through." Stung with the reproach. Vane cries 
out in anger and is stayed from an act of violence 
only by the prompt reproaches of Fiennes and Lou- 
don; then, turning upon Loudon, Vane passionately 
shows with how poor a grace the counsel for pa- 
tience comes from him, since Scotland still has a 
Parliament, and Loudon is its chief Commissioner. 
Scotland still is free ; England, enslaved. True, una- 
nimity should prevail; but all must realize the 
purport of Wentworth's coming, which is to crush 
the League, now the last and only hope and stay 
of England. Can they not fathom the man's true 
character and the depths of "what he dares"? 

Loudon interjects the calm assurance that they 
certainly do know, all know, what he dares; where- 
upon Vane, goaded to further extravagance by 
this tantalizing appearance of composure, calls 
violently for Wentworth's life, and, to strengthen 
the demand, repeats the vow John Pym made years 
before: — 

You leave us, Wentworth! while your head is on, 
I'll not leave you. 

It was spoken when the two friends separated, and 
Wentworth withdrew from the League. Before 
dropping their cause, Wentworth had craved au- 
dience with Pym, and with Pym only, though there 
were others in this company who were "strong on 
the people's side " — John Eliot, for example, who 
was afterward thrust into the tower for resisting 
unauthorized levies and religious innovations, and 
died there; and Hampden and Rudyard as well; 



56 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

yet "for these Wentworth cared Rot." The ap- 
pointed meeting between these two, who had 
sworn to live and die friends, had taken place at 
Greenwich. Long was the argument, specious and 
persuasive enough. They two combined might put 
down England, Wentworth had urged. Pym had 
listened patiently to the end; and then, with one 
characteristic flash of the eyes, he delivered his 
laconic ultimatum. And Pym will be true to his 
word, says Vane; Pym will not leave Wentworth 
while Wentworth lives, but will hunt him to the 
bitter end. 

Hampden curbs this extravagance with the cool 
and pointed question, — 

Has he left Wentworth, then? 
Has England lost him? Will you let him speak. 
Or put your crude surmises in his mouth? 
Away with this! 

Then turning to the assembly, he puts to them 
the question, "Will you have Pym or Vane.?" and 
winning their decision for Pym, calls for the re- 
sumption of the League's business in the reading 
of the report from the Parliament in Edinburgh. 
Loudon as spokesman of the Scots' Commissioners 
is called upon to make the report; but, before he can 
begin, Vane tries to excuse his own recent heat be- 
cause of the depth and strength of his feeling in 
the matter. He can be silent but "not indifferent," 
he exclaims. At length, however, he yields to 
Hampden's solicitation that "each keep silence, 
praying God to spare His anger," and not cast 
"England quite away in this her visitation." The 



STRAFFORD 57 

deep silence that accordingly ensues is accentuated 
by the solemn utterance of a Puritan from the 
rear of the room, who, perceiving the approach 
of Pym before any one else catches sight of him, 
heralds his coming in these sepulchral tones : — 

Seven years long 
The Midianite drove Israel into dens 
And caves. Till God sent forth a mighty man. 
Even Gideon! 

Pym enters, forthwith proclaiming Wentworth's 
actual return in spite of illness and alleged cor- 
ruption, and the storm that threatened his passage 
from Ireland. But the Court has not as yet received 
him, though a Council has been hastily summoned 
at Whitehall to give him work to do. Meanwhile 
the Scots' Parliament has been dissolved. This as- 
tounding announcement is received with dismay and 
imprecations by Loudon and the Commissioners. 
Charles an oath-breaker! All the more reason, then, 
that the League should stand together and not 
falter. The Scottish Parliament needs the help of 
the English people against their common foe, the 
tyrant on the throne. So thinks Loudon; but Pym 
seeks to calm the assembly with his opinion that 
the trouble does not lie so deep as that — not in 
the King's perfidy but in his lightness of heart 
and hopeful disposition. And Hampden, hitherto 
most impatient of the violent heat of Vane and 
Rudyard, now himself appeals to them laconically 
to "speak," as they "had much to say." Hollis, 
still holding out with hope, begins, "The rumor 's 
false, then ..." to be interrupted with cruel irony 
by Pym's 



58 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Ay, the Court gives out 
His own concerns have brought him back: I know 
'T is the King calls him. 

— Calls him to be the arch-instrument of oppres- 
sion in the place of James Hamilton and Francis 
Cottington, whose services have ended. Time has 
come, the King thinks, for a long-indulgent lord 
to bring peace at the point of the sword, teaching 
a rebellious nation that "all kind expedients" have 
heen "tried." Another page of history must be 
written, the "last gentle entry" being Archbishop 
Laud's religious persecution of the Scots; and the 
new entry shall chronicle the success of Wentworth 
in thrusting Laud's religion down their throats by 
force of arms. 

The angry snarl of a Puritan in the audience call- 
ing for one mighty blow at the tyrant shows the 
tense feeling of the eager listeners. 

Pym recognizes the interruption with the con- 
cession that it is "a goodly thing" to correct the 
wrongs against England. Who has not had that 
ambition in her dark hours, and who does not have 
it now in this her darkest.^ Let all be brave beneath 
the threatening thunder. All of the League "have 
done their best" — 

From lion Eliot, that grand Englishman, 
To the least . . . 

and let all continue to do their best for their 
country's redemption, which, although it dawns 
dimly, is dawning surely; and who the least among 
them would barter away the proud hope of fellow- 
ship with the heroes who will have brought it 
about? 



STRAFFORD 59 

Here Hampden, perhaps moved by the stout elo- 
quence of the man, perhaps purposing only by an 
adroit play to make Pym show his hand, hints 
plainly that Pym is the " matchless man " who shall 
live to future generations as having "saved Eng- 
land"; but Pym, seeing the ruse, quickly substi- 
tutes Went worth's name for his oWn in the course 
of Hampden's words, thus robbing them of their 
intent. But Rudyard and other hotheads cry out 
against the proposal, clamoring for Wentworth's 
death as Vane had cried for it before. Vane, how- 
ever, warns them that there must be no foul play, 
"no villainous striking down"; and Rudyard read- 
ily assents that a "calm vengeance" would be more 
efficacious, an uprisal over the whole land! No 
assassination in the base manner of John Felton! 
Pym, scornfully rejecting thought of such blood- 
shed, and turning to Hampden for support, again 
affirms his belief that, "spite of the past," Went- 
worth will rejoin them. But the supposition is met 
with shouts of "Apostate!" "Judas!" "Double- 
dyed a traitor!" from Vane and his followers, and 
half-expressed indignation that Pym could so far 
forget himself. But Pym replies to indignation 
with soft persuasion, recounting his once great 
love for the misguided man, their intimate com- 
panionship in days gone by, their common studies 
in history and politics, their common sympathy for 
the people and opposition to the King, their com- 
mon veneration of Eliot, the people's champion. 
Surely Vane never knew Wentworth as Pym knew 
him, never loved him, never sat beside him in Par- 
liament . . . 



60 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

From which, interrupts Vane bitterly, that same 
Wentworth, after having framed "the choicest 
clause in the Petition of Right," allowed himself to 
be bought over to the King with the office of the 
"Northern Presidency" — an office which "that 
Bill denounced." 

Pym sorrowfully admits the defection and the 
sad cessation of their friendship, his loneliness since; 
yet insists that of all his friends, of whom he has had 
many, of whom he has many in the assembly now, 
none was dearer than Wentworth; and Wentworth 
was a real friend, he could have been no other. 
Vane and Rudyard, it is to be admitted, have little 
cause to place trust in him, yet is there none to hope 
with Pym? Then, turning again to Hampden, his 
friend and advocate, with the query, "Will Went- 
worth dare shed English blood like water?" Pym 
receives only equivocal support in the reply that 
"Ireland is," indeed, "Aceldama," verily a field 
of blood. Yet he continues bravely: Will Went- 
worth "turn Scotland to a hunting-ground to 
please the King, now that he knows the King " ? 
Could Wentworth desert the people for the King, 
and that king the perfidious Charles? 

Hampden is saying, with confidence in Pym, but 
distrust of his faith in Wentworth, — 

Pym, all here know you : you '11 not set your heart 
On any baseless dream. But say one deed 
Of Wentworth's, since he left us — 

when the noise of shouting is borne in from with- 
out. "There!" says Vane impatiently, "he comes, 
and they shout for him!" Next he will be in the 



STRAFFORD 61 

embraces of the King, matching courtesy with 
courtesy, and, not to be outdone in courtliness, him- 
self assuming the entire risk of the war with Scot- 
land — now, while the League is being told how 
changed he is. 

Yet Pym disregards Vane's turbulent sarcasm 
to reply with gentle pathos to Hampden's charge. 
How pitiful if, as Hampden holds, it be but a dream 
that Wentworth, having espoused the people's 
cause at the first and consistently held to it through 
all changes, has undertaken the service of the King 
only to bring himself to love the cause at last as 
if there had been no Laud to hinder before, as if 
there were no Queen to interfere now; only a dream 
that he has brought the cause calmly to a success- 
ful issue, though with violence, which, however, 
can rob the event of none of its luster, can take 
"no grace from its serene regard." 

Hampden deems it best to remain silent on this, 
which he has called a chimerical view, and to recall 
the League to the business in hand — that of ac- 
complishing "certain good by obvious means": the 
good in keeping up the tradition of free assemblages 
and English freedom. Their counsel has not been 
in vain, since in this poor chamber friend has heart- 
ened friend, the dearest wants of England have 
been learned and communicated to the delegates 
of Scotland; and the next step to take is, with God's 
help and in spite of the devil's hindrance, to put 
resolution into execution; to trust that good will 
come from evil; to continue the tactics which, sup- 
posing the worst of Wentworth, shall draw out their 
"formidablest foe" instead of inviting defeat in 



62 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

** bickering and disunion"; to regard Wentworth's 
presence the proof of their victory; and to perse- 
vere in the strife in the old approved way. Let the 
order of business prevail, let the list of grievances be 
read, let the work of England proceed. As the ques- 
tion of ship-money is introduced with the announce- 
ment by Fiennes that its levy has been either re- 
sisted or paid under fierce protest in every county 
except the northern ones "where Wentworth's 
influence" as President of the North still prevails, 
the shouting from without is repeated; and Vane 
again is roused to make loud protest against a 
policy of further debate, against a continuance of 
that "peaceful strife" which Hampden tamely 
advocates. Now that the last shadow of a Parlia- 
ment has been dispelled from Scotland, argument 
must be renounced for sterner measures; the more 
so since the tyrants have struck the first blow in 
substituting for law brute force. Many voices ap- 
plaud the speaker, and again he calls for venge- 
ance on Wentworth. This being seconded with 
general cries of "Vane for England!" — Pym faces 
them with the quiet but resolute reminder that he, 
Pym, "should be something for England" ; and he 
announces before they adjourn that he counts them 
his friends still and for their sake, as well as 
England's, goes forth to "seek Wentworth." 



II 

Wentworth has hurried back from Ireland in 
almost complete physical exhaustion, his frame 
wracked, his face yellow with disease, and his 



STRAFFORD 63 

mind prostrated with anxiety. Lucy Percy, Coun- 
tess of Carlisle, his devoted friend and confidante, 
meets him in an anteroom at Whitehall with tender 
concern and solicitations for his health, which to 
any one but Wentworth, engrossed as he is in the 
fascinating personality of Charles and the weighty 
affairs of statecraft, must wear a deeper color than 
that of friendship alone. Without, the crowd is 
surging and shouting ; within, the Privy Council 
is in session, deliberating on the advisability of a 
war with Scotland and attending to the earnest 
plea of Bishop Laud against that madness. The 
Earl of Holland is there with Lord Savile, and Sir 
Henry Vane — and the King; wherefore the King's 
tardiness in welcoming Wentworth's return. Cer- 
tainly the Council has the King's ear, if not his 
confidence ; and as certainly it has not only the 
Queen's ear but her confidence and active coopera- 
tion. The Queen's hostility to Wentworth goes far 
to explain his feverish agitation, as he now con- 
fers with Lady Carlisle in expectation of the royal 
presence. 

"This horrible fatigue will kill you," she urges. 
If he will rest, she will tell him all. He protests he 
cannot rest till his doubts are resolved. She as- 
sures him of the King's confidence and trust; but 
her reply is waived aside with sceptical queries, 
and then lost in the noise of shouting without. 

Do they shout for him, the knaves .f* 

Who knows? rejoins Lady Carlisle, for he has 
come so strangely soon. Yet, she adds, measures 
were taken to "keep off the crowd." 

Why, then, he sneers, should they not shout for 



64 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

him? Would the King take measures to keep the 
crowd from himself? Assured that few dare carp at 
him, Wentworth pettishly corrects Lady Carlisle 
with the rejoinder that the King must share with 
him immunity from blame, since Charles is the real 
author of "these late deeds" of blood in Ireland, 
and Wentworth but the instrument — an instru- 
ment, a tool, a servant who has his master's implicit 
trust! Unceremoniously, almost brutally, he re- 
jects Lady Carlisle's proffer of comfort in the infor- 
mation she would give, were she not prevented by 
his brusqueness, that the King will prove his trust 
with the grant of an Earldom, and prove it in the 
"face of all the Court." The mention of that com- 
pany, so detested in his eyes — "Savile and Hol- 
land, Hamilton and Vane" — prompts him to 
demand hotly if the royal grant then means that 
these shall be banished "for once" and the royal 
ear inclined to him for counsel? Besought to be 
calm, he passionately declares he is ; — but is 
startled next moment, believing he hears the King's 
step drawing near. A pause, and then his thoughts 
revert suddenly to the overwhelming suspicion of 
the King's distrust; and with a sudden appeal to 
Lady Carlisle's loyalty and affection, he demands 
if it is the Queen who is undermining him. 

"No, not the Queen," he is told with sly per- 
version, but the "party that poisons the Queen's 
ear, Savile and Holland." 

Ah, he thought so; and "old Vane" makes a 
third? — Sir Harry Vane the elder, who now is 
Secretary to the King? Well, what of them! They 
have his scorn ! The charge, after all, is the im- 



STRAFFORD 65 

portant thing; what is the charge? what are their 
grievances? 

Oh, there 's no charge, no precise charge; 
Only they sneer, make Hght of — one may say. 
Nibble at what you do. 

But are there no precise charges? and will his 
"gentle friend" not spare an hour, as before his 
arrival he guessed she might, to help her — shall 
he say friend or lover? But the right word stick- 
ing in his throat, he turns to the woman to name 
his true position in her affections, which she re- 
veals to him prettily enough with the arch ques- 
tion, "You thought of me, dear Wentworth?" 
Satisfied on that point and too impatient to pause 
for endearments, he urgently presses her to go on 
with the charges, and she presents them without 
further reservation: first, his administration in Ire- 
land has achieved no extraordinary results; and, 
second, his share in the customs is unduly large; 
and, third, the taxes. . . . 

She is interrupted with an angry command for 
silence; such quibbling is too base to hear. Abruptly 
changing the subject, he inquires about Pym — 
"Pym and the People," as he calls them; Pym and 
the "Faction," as Lady Carlisle will have it; or Pym 
and the "League," as the members of that body 
themselves would say. Told that they are "ex- 
tinct" and "of no account," since their efforts to 
perpetuate the Parliament are doomed to failure, 
he receives the statement incredulously — reverts 
to the early days when he was — he might have 
said "one of them," but he chooses to say "much 
that he is not now." On the grounds of his old- 



66 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

time relations with them, has he not far better rea- 
son to claim the King's confidence about Pym and 
Pym's associates than that nest of intriguers, the 
Saviles, Vanes, and Hollands have ? As between 
them and Pym — certainly he will "not be their 
tool," — he who "might be Pym's friend yet." 
Again, with nervous expectancy he anticipates 
the King's step; and being told that Charles has 
just been apprised of his arrival, he beats down 
what he takes to be Lady Carlisle's shuffling de- 
fense of the King, but what in reality is her tactful 
regard for his own ill health, with the demand 
why the King is not here now to meet him, since, 
as he was informed, Charles not only sent but longed 
for him. With much reluctance and hesitation the 
answer comes that the royal Council is sitting in de- 
liberation over the affairs with Scotland. Stunned 
with the idea that the Council can take definite 
measures on those matters without him, the Presi- 
dent of the North, and suspecting that they may 
have gone so far as to declare war behind his back, 
though he has come hotly from Ireland to "show 
how rash it is" and "how easy to dispense with," 
he is carried in his rage to the mad point of doubt- 
ing the loyalty even of Lady Carlisle; then craves 
her pardon — his cares are too heavy : they * ' weigh " 
him to his "grave." 

Unable to endure the pity of the scene any longer. 
Lady Carlisle takes her leave with the earnest dec- 
laration, "For life or death I am your own, dear 
friend!" 

But the assurance fails to hearten him, as again 
he yields to the overwhelming suspicion of the heart- 



STRAFFORD 67 

lessness of all, and of Lady Carlisle no less. If the 
King be false, what else matters? If the King can 
forsake the people, certainly Went worth will not; 
nor has Went worth ever done so, as "they shall 
know" so soon as the "King will trust" him. But 
when will the King trust him.^^ — the King who 
lavishes trust on every one else; and only not on 
Wentworth, because Went worth has "but saved 
the throne," has not "picked up the Queen's 
glove prettily," so is not trusted. Yet there may 
be one way left to the King's heart, now that Wes- 
ton the treasurer is dead — the magic way that 
leads to the King's purse; besides, the Queen is 
losing her foreign tastes and sympathies, and one 
lucky word may find her heart as well. A step ap- 
proaches; this time he recognizes it as the King's, 
What shall he say ? How shall he begin ? 

And the flesh fails, now, and the time is come. 
And one false step no way to be repaired; 

and realizing his abject prostration of mind and 
body, he wanders in thought to Pym and Pym's 
triumphant look could Pym behold his confusion 
and despair. 

Perhaps it is a momentary relief to the shattered 
man that it is not the King who enters after all, 
but the most unexpected of persons, Pym himself. 

Wentworth, almost mute with surprise, receives 
him with the soft utterance, "I little thought of 
you just then," and is met with the cordial assur- 
ance, "I think always of you, Wentworth" — an 
assurance to which neither may be giving the sinis- 
ter meaning of Pym's declaration at their parting 



68 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

at Greenwich; for it may be with a touch of old- 
time affection that Wentworth exclaims, "The old 
voice!" In a moment, however, pulling himself 
together, he says formally, "I wait the King, sir." 
Pym rejoins that he might have read as much in 
Wentworth's paleness; adds that the Privy Council 
is in session, and when that adjourns the King may 
be seen. Wentworth replies with a cold "Sir, I 
thank you"; and Pym meets coldness with light 
banter in pointing out that Bishop Laud is the one 
to be thanked, since he it is who is holding the ses- 
sion in a desperate effort to prove that the 

English all are mad to have a hand 
In butchering the Scots for serving God 
After their fathers' fashion. 

But the case, being only that, is not so serious after 
all; the wait will not be long. 

Wentworth, troubled by Pym's manner and led 
by it to suspect his alliance with the Court Faction, 
maintains an air of distant haughtiness; requests 
that Pym reserve his jocular moods for "those 
who relish them"; it is indeed a kindness in him to 
say "what the Council does." 
Then Pym, — 

You grudge 
That I should know it had resolved on war 
Before you came? no need: you shall have all 
The credit, trust me! 

After a moment of intense agitation, Wentworth 
draws himself up to the full height of his reserve 
with the declaration, "I know you not. Farewell, 
sir: times are changed." But Pym, who has just 
come from the meeting of the League with the 



STRAFFORD 69 

avowed purpose of sounding him, is not so easily 
to be put off. After a bitter reference to their 
memorable meeting at Greenwich, and to the 
strange changes that have indeed taken place since 
then, strange "exploits in Ireland," — changes all 
too strange to their friend Eliot, could he see them 
"from out his grave," — Pym, basing his plea on 
the memory of their old friendship, makes a last 
persuasive effort at reconciliation. A haughty 
gesture from Wentworth is calculated to chill the 
advance, but fails. Pym avows his sincerity, his 
unwillingness to play for advantage — has he not 
lacked credit since their quarrel for having cham- 
pioned Wentworth as superior even to Eliot in the 
cause of the League and Covenant.^ And then he 
asks forgiveness for his plain-speaking — a trick 
he says he keeps; a trick most unlike the deceptive 
finesse of Holland, Savile, and old Vane; a trick, 
in short, he is not ashamed of. But at mention 
of the Court Faction, Went worth's mistrust rises 
again. Pym, he suspects, enjoys their confidence 
and is perhaps here as their agent. Cool haughti- 
ness gives way to heightened scorn as Wentworth 
rejects the proffered reconciliation : — 

Keep your thoughts ! believe the King 
Mistrusts me for their prattle, all these Vanes 
And Saviles ! make your mind up, o' God's love. 
That I am discontented with the King ! 

Pym, nettled at the rebuff, returns scorn for 
scorn with the thrust that he, too, should be thor- 
oughly discontented with the King, were he less 
like Eliot and Hampden, who cared not for titles, 
and more like Savile of the Court Faction, who is 



70 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

a lord, and Wentworth, who has sold his soul for 
an earldom. It is hard to think, therefore, that 
Charles "did well" in laughing the bribe-taker 
"to such utter scorn" and refusing him who twice 
prayed so humbly, "the thirty silver pieces" — 
rather the earldom he expected, still expects, and 
may continue to expect. Pity that Wentworth's 
letters were so moving! But there is consolation in 
sympathy : Pym, too, has brought the King prayers 
— "words moving in their way" — "from Scotland 
not to be oppressed by Laud," and it is a foregone 
conclusion that they will receive as much of the 
royal attention as Wentworth's will. 

The shot goes home. Wentworth almost loses 
himself in incoherence, in denouncing the falsehood; 
then, assuming the truth of it, in praising the King 
for his part in the incident; then, in alleging his 
pleasure at having been so honored; then, for old 
friendship's sake, in appealing to John Pym to 
forbear on that point. And Pym, thinking to have 
touched a responsive chord at last, appeals to the 
tenderness of that friendship, to its stanch brother- 
hood, and the pity that "all should come to this." 
Bidden be gone, he nevertheless persists in his 
proffer of reconciliation and, approaching with ex- 
tended hand, contrasts the ancient joy of the 
League in Wentworth's leadership with their pres- 
ent sorrow at his absence; bids him with God's 
help shake off the delusion, the "obscene dream," 
which keeps him in the royal chamber of abomi- 
nations, return to the League as of old and, as their 
captain, guide the destinies of England aright. The 
proffered hand clasps Wentworth's with warm ex- 



STRAFFORD 71 

pressions of joy and with renewed supplications that 
Wentworth forbear even to see the King now, but 
return to the rough old assembly room of the 
League, to Hampden and Fiennes, so long missed, 
and Harry Vane the younger whom he will delight 
to know. 

They are standing thus, hand gripped in hand, 
when suddenly the King enters; and Wentworth, 
startled, lets fall Pym's hand and kneels before the 
royal presence. 

Charles, approaching Wentworth with conven- 
tional courtesy, knowingly refers to Pym as Went- 
worth's "old friend," and then, turning to Pym 
himself, remarks pointedly that the "Scots shall 
be informed what" will be determined "for their 
happiness." Thus dismissed, Pym takes his leave. 

Wentworth hastens to present the reason for his 
coming, but is interrupted with a satirical com- 
pleting of his words: Come — "to see an old famil- 
iar" friend.? says Charles; and adds suavely that 
the friend's experience will be of service in sup- 
pressing the Scots' League and Covenant, which 
"spreads too far," and in suppressing the English 
adjunct to it as well, of which Wentworth 's friend, 
just gone, "is the head and front." Suppressed 
they must be, as there are indisputable proofs of 
their intrigue with France. The friend no doubt 
has boasted of his leadership and power. 

Seeing himself thus suspected, W^entworth be- 
seeches earnestly to be trusted and, Charles affect- 
ing not to understand, falls on his knees before him, 
imploring confidence not for his own sake but for 
the King's, since for that very mistrust the King 



72 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

causes himself to suffer. Does he not believe that 
Went worth would die to serve him? 

Wentworth is gently bidden to rise, but his agi- 
tation persists. What proof shall be convincing ? 
What can be the evidence which such as Savile give 
of their fidelity.^ — Alas, that one can't tear out 
one's heart to show "how sincere a thing it is"! 

Assured that he has been trusted, Wentworth 
rejects the assurance with the explanation that in 
his absence he was misrepresented and maligned 
by those who poisoned the King's ear against the 
King's will; but he expresses the comforting hope 
— yes, the confidence — that the King will trust 
him and by his trust make everything different. 

The King warmly professes that he does trust 
him and with sly banter adds that he does so for 
the double reason that the Countess Carlisle has 
just interposed in his behalf. But Wentworth, sol- 
emnly protesting that he should need no more special 
pleading with the King than should the King's 
own right hand or his children, is bidden, with a 
warmth that seems thoroughly genuine, to rise 
and be assured that the King loves him. Thus 
encouraged, he can speak quite frankly : He alone 
can save the King, and he will do so in the face of 
any necessity and any danger. And Charles replies 
that, loath as he is to spill his subjects' blood, it has 
been decided to project the war against Scotland 
at the urgent instance of Bishop Laud, who is con- 
vinced that the Scots have intrigued with France. 
The King is inclined to ratify the project. Quickly 
inquiring if Laud has "suggested any way to meet 
the war's expense," Wentworth receives dubious 



STRAFFORD 73 

comfort from the information that the Bishop 
would "not decide so far" until the Viscount's 
arrival. Can Laud be certain of the Scottish intrigue 
with France? If so, there is reason for the People's 
support. The King interjects a pertinent reference 
to Wentworth's recent conference with Pym in 
venturing the remark that "Pym should know" 
about the People's support. But to gain this, the 
People's support, Wentworth urges under stress of 
a great inspiration, Let a Parliament be summoned, 
in Ireland first, then in England; it is a thought 
worthy of the trust which the King has just avowed. 
"In truth.?" questions the King quizzically; but 
Wentworth, swept on by full faith in the expedient, 
sets forth as his reason that thus Pym's Faction, 
the League which "tutors Scotland" and which 
supposes "no Parliament," will be taken by sur- 
prise, the war will be put off, the League will be 
given time to have their grievances righted, and 
Pym to present his views. The plan, in short, is 
this: — 

Produce the proofs 

Of Scotland's treason; then bid England help: 

Even Pym will not refuse. 

"You would begin with Ireland?" muses the 
King; and Wentworth replies, "Take no care for 
that: that's sure to prosper." Then the King does 
what doubtless he had decided from the first to do 
in any event: he appears to confirm the plan, ad- 
vises that Wentworth "return at once" to Ireland, 
and offers with intimate endearments the glitter- 
ing jewel of a George and the title of Earl as indis- 
putable evidence of his trust and friendship. 



74 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

The Earl of Strafford ! — Rapt with this sudden 
joy, and gazing far off as in a dream, Wentworth 
scarcely realizes the import of the King's soft words 
in the music of the voice which abjures the "vain 
rumors" of his un worthiness and exalts him as the 
very apple of the royal eye. Roused from moment- 
ary oblivion to the world and the business in hand, 
Strafford dreamily begs for leave to withdraw, but, 
recalled by the protest of the King, again reverts 
with fervor to the expedient of a Parliament as the 
only means of salvation. Then, in a transport of 
joy and gratitude, he vows loyally to serve the King 
in any way. Parliament or no Parliament. But 
Charles implores him to desist and spare himself 
all further exertion in his illness. He is not ill, 
says the Earl; it is only his soul's exaltation now, 
not his body's weakness, that agitates him. Every- 
thing shall be cared for; the Parliament shall be 
summoned because, after all, they will not be needed 
much; and if, as the King fears, "they prove 
restive," Strafford will be at the King's side even 
"ere they assemble." 

I will come, or else 

Deposit this infirm humanity 

I' the dust. My whole heart stays with you, my King! 

The Queen enters the chamber, as the Earl 
leaves it. "That man must love me," says Charles, 
pointing to the retreating figure. But it is with 
undisguised dislike that the Queen follows Straf- 
ford with her eyes, and remarks contemptuously 
on the manifest signs of illness in the extremely 
yellow cast of his complexion; then, referring to 
the earldom just bestowed, she sneers out affected 



STRAFFORD 75 

consolation that, now that he is paid, they shall 
not, at least, "hear eternally of service — services." 

Yet he is "not done with," smiles the King; 
"he engages to surpass all yet performed in Ire- 
land." This is met with another sneer that "no- 
thing beyond " Ireland, she had thought, "was ever 
to be done." Then, driving straight to the point 
of the Council's declaration of war with the abrupt 
question whether the paid hireling will "raise sup- 
plies enough," she sees the monarch hesitate be- 
tween truth and equivocation as he nervously con- 
fesses to an "expedient" hit upon, the calling of a 
Parliament "decided on" — a confession which he 
weakly strives to disguise with the qualification 
that the Parliament is meant only for Ireland. But 
penetrating the sham, she denounces it with ut- 
ter disgust and little regard for Charles's pettish 
protest that he "should know best," and "once a 
precedent established," all will go well. Precedent? 
she continues; yes, precedent is the word, for it is 
precisely the precedent of an English Parliament 
and an endless succession of Parliaments which 
will secure the hireling in a "long term of 
favor," hoping, as well he may, to "see the next, 
and the next after that" and "no end to Parlia- 
ments! " 

"Well, it is done," says Charles, relenting; and 
the plan as he presented it looked good enough, he 
adds. The Queen's petulance bears down all op- 
position, all suave protest and mild persuasion. 
She wishes herself "in France again to see a 
King!"; she applauds the Scots for wishing to cast 
ofiP the rule of so weak a sovereign; she laments her 



76 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

shame in being supplanted in the King's, her hus- 
band's, confidence. 

The appeal proves irresistible. He does confide 
in her, his Henriette, his love. The Parliament 
shall never trouble them. There are other "schemes, 
such schemes": the leaders shall be bought off; 
Wentworth's counsel of calling the Parliament is 
accepted only for the opportunity of "breaking" 
that Parliament forever, with Wentworth the butt 
of all the blame. That is the point of the situation. 
Does she not see it.^ Thus, seeming triumphant 
yet abjectly servile to his passion of uxorious- 
ness, the ductile monarch leads away his shrewish 
consort with profuse expressions of affection and 
devotion. 

Ill 

The League "that tutors Scotland" has reas- 
sembled in its dingy and narrow room in the shadow 
of Whitehall. In Whitehall itself have recently met 
the English Parliament, called at suggestion of the 
Viscount Wentworth to consider the Privy Council's 
proposed war with Scotland. Wentworth, having 
been created Earl of Strafford, not as a proof of 
the royal trust and favor, as he was taught to be- 
lieve, but rather, as Queen Henriette is assured, 
to secure his continuance in the royal service to 
such ends as the King himself shall determine, had 
meanwhile gone back to Ireland to resume his work 
as Lord Deputy there, and has just returned to 
the Court. Thus the Parliament has met during his 
absence; and whatever has been done in pursuance 
of his plan that the Parliament consider the griev- 



STRAFFORD 77 

ances of the League, one thing is certain: the Par- 
liament is in danger of passing an act for the levy 
of "twelve subsidies." So much is clear to the 
League; whether the war against Scotland^is to be 
pressed, is not so clear, though some are quite sure 
that that will be the next development. Certainly 
an army has been created and put into the field. 
It may be that the royal hand is but tightening 
its clutch upon the throat of the People. Certainly, 
too, new acts of tyranny have been perpetrated in 
Ireland, and indications point to their repetition 
in England. The privilege of a Parliament, so long 
withheld and so long clamored for, seems to have 
been granted for the sole purpose of enacting the 
very oppression which it was believed the existence 
of that body would have prevented. Certain of 
the League profess to see in the call of the Par- 
liament a trick devised expressly for the defeat 
and humiliation of the League: the League is to be 
viewed throughout the nation as responsible for 
the Parliament's existence and therefore as sanc- 
tioning its abuses. This is the sorry jest of the 
situation, all the sorrier for the preposterous de- 
mand for "twelve subsidies." Why, exclaims 
Fiennes, "all England cannot furnish twelve sub- 
sidies!" 

The exact position and responsibility of Straf- 
ford in this crisis is the one point of amazement to 
Rudyard, Vane, Fiennes, and one or two stragglers 
of their party, as they press into their old secluded 
meeting place. While others cry out bitterly. Vane, 
save for a word or two of protest, is lashed into si- 
lence under the whip of chagrin. This is no time for 



7S STORIES FROM BROWNING 

merriment; let all wretched laughter cease. Rud- 
yard retorts with stinging pointedness, "True, 
Strafford called the Parliament — 't is he should 
laugh." The retort meets with a growl of approval 
from an obscure "Puritan" in the room, and 
Fiennes adds that the "Scots' war" will be flying 
fast in the wake of the Parliament; then, turning to 
Vane whose appearance of dejection is unmistak- 
able, he offers doubtful consolation in the fellow- 
ship which misery seeks: Vane certainly was no 
more a dupe than Fiennes himself, or Rudyard, or 
any of the League on the day when Pym returned 
to the chamber with "the good news" that Went- 
worth had consented to rejoin them. 

At this point Hampden enters, alone and buried 
in thought. It was Hampden who at the League's 
last meeting had succeeded in reducing Vane's 
fiery heat and swaying the feelings of the assembly 
toward caution and moderation in the treatment of 
Wentworth's desertion. It is with especial point, 
then, that Vane attacks Hampden with a mocking 
plea for absolution from guilt in the present di- 
lemma. Vane's course has been not only consistent, 
but, as events have shown, extremely right; yet he 
suffers under an unjust imputation, the imputation 
of inconsistency and weakness. He would be cleared 
of that; he "would have leave to sleep again"; he 
would "look the People in the face again," exon- 
erated from the blame of having ever hoped or 
"dreamed better of Strafford." But diamond cuts 
diamond in Hampden's, 

You may grow one day 
A steadfast light to England, Henry Vane! 



STRAFFORD 79 

Rudyard, always ready to abet Vane, presses home 
the point that certainly Strafford has the credit 
of having revived the Parliaments, of making the 
war a certainty, of bringing an army into existence, 
of giving "poor Ireland" her death-blow. Oh, the 
travesty of a Parliament, so long clamored for in the 
universal protest against loans and levies, ship- 
money, and Star Chamber sessions, meeting at 
length and straightway yielding to the King's 
imperious demand for "twelve subsidies"! This is 
indeed a choice specimen of the royal irony. 

Hollis, ever eager to join hands with Hampden, 
at length finds opportunity to inquire how any 
talk about Strafford, who has just returned from 
Ireland, can be pertinent to the "twelve subsidies"? 
" What has he to do with that.^^ How could he speak 
his mind.f^ He left before the Parliament assembled." 
Pym knew Strafford; let Pym interpret Strafford's 
motives. 

Whatever Pym may know, Rudyard is sure of 
nothing, fails to discriminate between good and 
bad, cannot distinguish friend from foe. So Hollis 
counts Parliaments a gain. With the King's 
"creatures" in the majority .f^ questions Rudyard. 
A gain, when there's going on among the League 
"a quiet, slow, but most effectual course of buying 
over, sapping, leavening the lump till all is leaven," 
till all have submitted to the sway of Pym, and Straf- 
ford, and Charles.^ Glanville, too, has left them. 
Why, the Commons were even on the point of grant- 
ing the King's personal subsidies in exchange for 
the cessation of ship-money, if six subsidies instead 
of twelve had been acceptable. Yes, shouts Rud- 



80 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

yard, let Hampden hear and be congratulated — 
let all be congratulated — the King has gained "his 
point at last" with the League's "assent to that 
detested tax"! 

Pym enters at this juncture, and is assailed, as 
Hampden was, by Vane's angry charge that Straf- 
ford is responsible, according to Pym's own ad- 
mission, for the new Parliament; and that being 
so, the League must see to it that the English Par- 
liaments must not be "like those in Ireland," 
whose liberties are abridged by a law limiting their 
meetings to but one a year and their business to 
the program set before them by the Privy Coun- 
cil. 

To Rudyard's mind, the man whom Pym has 
shielded should be presented in his true character 
and stripped of the defense that "hides far too 
many sins" — a defense which, stretched to the 
bursting point, can hold no more and is now drop- 
ping in shreds and tatters. The demand is seconded 
by many other voices. There could be no fitter time, 
they cry. The man must "stand forth" in his true 
colors. They have waited thus long, and patiently, 
for Pym's avowal. 

Yes, they have waited long, "perhaps, too long," 
thinks Rudyard. Only "the madness of the Court, 
in thus unmasking its designs at once, has saved " 
them "from betraying England." And since "this 
Parliament is Strafford's," let the League answer 
him with a vote of their grievances — grievances 
which "are too black by far to suffer talk of sub- 
sidies." Let it be proclaimed that the question 
of ship-money has been "disposed of long ago by 



STRAFFORD 81 

England." Let this sweeping ultimatum be the 
League's reply; 

And then let Strafford, for the love of it. 
Support his Parliament! 

And to that let the League add, "No war to be 
with Scotland!" interjects Vane with rising voice; 
and, turning threateningly to Pym, he repeats the 
cry with doubled emphasis. The crowd seconds him 
to the echo. Some take up Rudyard's plea, shout- 
ing, "Stop the new levies!" Others denounce the 
bruited war as Laud's and will have none of it. 
Others call loudly for a vote on these questions "at 
once"; others would defer action until the next 
meeting. 

Patience is written on the face of the one assailed, 
as he lifts his voice in the first lull of the noise. 
Faith born of serenity lights Pym's features as he 
turns his gaze full into the eyes of the assembly, 
calling them his friends and inquiring with accus- 
tomed persuasiveness who among them, since 
"first the course of Strafford was in doubt," has 
condemned Pym most; whereupon Vane, with 
flashing eye and trembling voice, admits that he 
was but even now pondering words of severest 
denunciation that should brand Pym a traitor 
"at league with England's enemy." At that, Pym 
steps forward to grasp his accuser warmly by the 
hand, greet him as a "good and gallant spirit,'* 
and beg forgiveness for the pain of all suspense 
till now. They shall forgive; for Strafford is theirs, 
wholly theirs. Yes, Pym is sure; for Charles is dis- 
solving the Parliament at this moment, distrust- 
ing Strafford, and casting him off forever. There 



82 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

will be no Parliament. Strafford, too, renounces 
the friendship. Let all join in going to Whitehall, 
find Strafford, welcome him back into their number, 
and "bid the King farewell" with good luck to his 
expedition against Scotland. 

Vane is all forgiveness; the assembly acclaim the 
reconciliation; and, with one accord, follow Pym's 
enthusiastic guidance to the Court to witness the 
brightening of a new day for England. 

IV 

Strafford, just returned from Ireland, is closeted 
with Charles in the presence chamber at Whitehall. 
The war is to go forward without delay, an army has 
been raised, and the Earl is in readiness to command 
it. He has laid careful plans for the expedition, only 
at the last moment to find them frustrated, or so 
completely changed as in his eyes to be frustrated. 
It is with words of indignant protest that he has 
addressed the King on the liberties taken with the 
plans, and is reprimanded for his heat. He continues 
that the plans, which at first had had the King's 
unqualified and affectionate approval and which, 
unaltered, had made the future look bright, have 
been so changed at their most vital point as to be 
ruined, wholly ruined. Yet, strangely, the King 
can sanction the ruinous alteration with as much 
grace as at first he approved the original papers. 
"How's this? What may this mean? Sir, who 
has done this?" questions Strafford fiercely. 

The King alone, he is softly assured. The King, 
not the Council. All other advisers have been put 
away. Strafford alone is the King's adviser. 



STRAFFORD 83 

It is with a scornful curl of the lip that the Earl 
receives the assurance. It is plain enough where to 
look for the source of an unworthy scheme like this, 
more especially when that scheme singles out Straf- 
ford to perpetrate the mischief. It is all of a piece 
with Laud's trick of hatching the war, then falling 
to his prayers and letting the brunt of it descend 
upon Strafford; and he — he is alone, without 
confidence, without support. 

At least, reproves Charles, he knew as much when 
he undertook the war. 

Strafford corrects his liege. This was not the way. 
The way first proposed was, since Laud would "lap 
a little blood," to "hurry over the loathsome busi- 
ness" with one sure blow and then have peace; to 
secure this end by assigning Strafford to the com- 
mand of an Irish army for the West and by mar- 
shalling an English army for the South; and all 
had had the King's warm sanction fifty times over. 
But now, when the army is raised, Strafford ready 
to join it, and all things prepared beyond recall, for 
some trivial thing the "whole design is set aside," 
and Strafford is to "lead the English army" be- 
cause, indeed, Northumberland, whom Strafford 
had appointed, "is frightened" and "chooses to be 
sick." This were all very well, were it not for the 
Irish Parliament. Who will answer for that, or for 
the Irish army for that matter .f^ Is this his plan.f^ 

The Earl's decision of voice and gesture, and 
above all the clear truth of his words, evoke from 
the King a shuffling "So disrespectful, sir.?" Straf- 
ford warmly denies any disrespect; and, now that 
matters have gone too far to revoke the changes in 



84 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

the original plans, he as warmly affirms his loyalty, 
his loyalty to the death. The world, it is true, will 
look upon the act as his, while at the Court he will 
reap the fruit of every malicious whisper poured 
into the King's ear ! If only he could have and keep 
the King's undivided confidence, could have it for 
once, and have it now — now, at a time when he is 
"soon to rush alone upon a giant in the dark!" 

His bitter remonstrance is calmed by the King's 
smooth voice, and he falls mechanically to ex- 
amining his papers awhile. Yes, all he said is true. 
His "plan was sure to prosper," and in that event, 
as he had foreseen, there were "no cause to ask the 
Parliament for help"; whereas, under the changed 
proposal, the Parliament will be needed "fright- 
fully." 

"Need the Parliament?" asks Charles. It is the 
King's look of deep dejection that prompts Straf- 
ford to make a vehement plea for the Parliament's 
help as the last possible resource. With agitated 
concern he interprets the King's hurt expression 
as a rejection of the appeal, though, in reality, 
it is pity for Strafford in grasping at a straw out 
of reach: the Parliament has been adjourned, but 
Strafford does not know it. Indeed, he believes the 
Parliament to be sitting at the moment; and then 
he guesses mistakenly that Charles's worried look 
is due to fear that they will refuse to grant the de- 
mand for subsidies. So Strafford's effort at consola- 
tion is met with a similar one on the part of the King. 
Perhaps it is a ray of amused wonderment on. the 
royal face that awakens Strafford to the truth: 
the King has dissolved the Parliament, with noth- 



STRAFFORD 85 

ing done except the war declared, not a single 
subsidy granted. The King, after some silence, 
admits the fact, then attributes the adjournment 
to "old Vane's ill-judged vehemence" in telling 
them, just as they were about "to vote the half," 
that "nothing short" of twelve subsidies would be 
acceptable. 

It is with gasping amazement that Strafford 
hears these words. The perfidy of Vane in promising 
one thing and doing another ! The despair of losing 
one's "last hope" of reaching the King's heart one 
day, by finding it possessed, wholly possessed, by 
Vane! The despair of youth gone, hope gone, 
sunshine gone and lost, lost, to Vane! Suddenly 
he takes up a paper and with forced calmness 
studies its provisions: "Northumberland is sick." 
Very well, then, Strafford will "take the army." 
Wilmot at the head of the cavalry must, with Con- 
way, "secure the passes of the Tyne." Ormond 
goes to Ireland in Strafford's stead. As for sup- 
plies, he comments, there is no choice but to "try 
the City." London must yield a loan; and, if they 
refuse, let the bullion be seized and the coin de- 
based. It is the only recourse. The pity of it that 
things should come to this pass with himself in 
the King's presence and powerless to prevent it! 
The fearful danger that, himself once gone, the 
King will be wholly at the mercy of "hosts like 
Vane," who will "close around " and at the prompt- 
ing of the "least pique" and "pettiest mistrust" 
are sure to ruin this Strafford, and the King along 
with him! Does the King note that danger.? — 
The ruin will ultimately descend upon him as well. 



86 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Wentworth's voice, tense with emotion and 
weakened by disease, grows hoarse with the plea 
that the King turn to Vane and Vane's circle of 
intriguers a deaf ear. Let the Queen's whispered 
charges, too, be turned aside. Whatever they say, 
whatever she says, let the King's answer ever be 
of Strafford, "At any time when he returns, his 
head is mine." Yes, let the King hear him calmly. 
His head shall be the King's at his demand. 

A gesture of remonstrance from Charles that he, 
in turn, should be so little trusted, accompanies 
his exclamation that these words are "too shame- 
ful," especially in view of Strafford's advocacy of 
the war. 

Advocacy of the war.? Strafford an advocate of 
that, when he had "never been spoken with till 
it was entered on," who "loathes the war," who 
says it "is the maddest, wickedest" scheme im- 
aginable? Indeed, Strafford is constrained within 
his heart to think that the King, through weakness 
and the fear of meeting responsibility in case of a 
reverse with the Scots, will assign the war to his 
advice and so avert from himself, and direct upon 
Strafford, the rage of a furious people. Yes, let 
the King heed him, and remember that Strafford 
has said it: He knew it; he knew it from the first. 
"Never was there so cold a heart" as the King's, 
and never for a moment was the King believed 
either in this matter or in any other of his blan- 
dishments. The King's love.? The King's perfidy, 
rather, who thought himself securely screened by 
Strafford's exclusion from the whispering circle of 
the Vanes and Saviles. Nevertheless, Strafford had 



STRAFFORD 87 

the "heart to see" that the "face was masked," 
that the "face was flesh" but the heart was stone 
— "smooth cold frightful stone! " Is this treason? 
Let the guards be called for the arrest! Shall Straf- 
ford himself call them, if the King will not? Whom 
shall Strafford call? The Scots who are "goaded to 
madness " ? Or the English — shall Pym, the King's 
subject and leader of the English, be summoned? 
Or does the King trust that Strafford will "leave 
them in the dark about it all"; that no one shall 
know — Hampden and Pym shall not know — the 
King for what he really is? 

At this juncture Hampden and Pym enter, ac- 
companied by Vane and others of their party. But 
the impassioned champion of Charles, Charles the 
monarch and Charles the magnetic personality, 
suppresses every emotion save that of loyalty and, 
dropping on his knee, sues his sovereign with forced 
calmness and every outward mark of obedience 
and devotion, to believe that "a rebel League" 
can avail nothing against the King's servant 
who is pledged "utterly and ever" his. Then, 
turning to the rebels themselves, he assails them 
with the caustic reproof that they so pester the 
King as to leave him not even the "privilege" of 
bidding farewell to that " servant " who hastens " to 
save the People" — the People whom the League 
style peculiarly theirs — "from the mercies of 
the Scots" and their ally, France. With aiffected 
concern he begs of Charles audience for the rebels, 
and assumes the privilege of inquiring what their 
pleasure may be. 

Hampden pretends that it is "not Lord Straf- 



88 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

ford" they seek, but the King, since it is the King 
who has "dissolved" them; but Strafford replies 
quickly that he too is "guilty," as he counseled the 
measure. The King makes a movement as if to deny 
the untruth, not relishing the ironical position of 
being so openly shielded; but Strafford bears down 
all opposition with hasty protest. As for counseling 
the dissolution, that was "a heinous matter, truly " ! 
The Earl's tone of mockery is unmistakable. The 
King, he whispers, will yet be grateful for a course 
which now he blames; will the King not tell 
them so.f^ Let them choose "some fitter time" to 
make their charge. Strafford, they must under- 
stand, will soon be with the Scots, yes, fighting 
the Scots; it will then be quite appropriate for the 
Scots' League to "y^lp at" him. Turning to the 
King, the Earl acknowledges his obligations, his 
fealty, for his Majesty's trust; and then, in such 
a manner as to hide his agitation from the rest, he 
conducts Charles to the door under pretense of an 
earnest farewell. 

The King disappears ; and, as he does so, the rebels 
turn as by one impulse to Pym, who, stricken 
mute from the first, stands rooted to the spot. It 
is not he, then, but Hampden who speaks, be- 
seeching his comrades to leave to his fate "this arro- 
gant strong wicked man," Strafford, whose true 
spirit and conduct have at last been clearly defined 
by his own mouth. Vane and others swell the chorus 
of denunciation and call out to Pym, who still 
stands stiff with surprise, to leave "this unworthy 
place" and repair to their "old room again." They 
stop, however, in their hasty exit, at the quick turn 



STRAFFORD 89 

of the Earl, who, instead of following the King, 
looks back under the hypnotic command of Pym's 
grim stare. "Keep tryst!" is Pym's solemn warn- 
ing; "the old appointment's made anew: forget 
not we shall meet again." Strafford, understanding 
well the reference to their old meeting at Green- 
wich and Pym's oath of persecution to the death 
in the event of permanent defection, accepts the 
renewed challenge with, " So be it ! " and the ironical 
thrust, "And if an army follows me.?" Vane is 
ready with the retort, "His friends will entertain 
your army!" 

With a solemnity born of long patience and 
deepened with devoted attachment, Pym leaves 
the just appraisal of Strafford's decision to time. 
It is now idle to interpose, to hope against hope. 
Not Pym himself, no one indeed, has a personal 
share in the matter. Yet it were idle to avert one's 
eyes from the vengeance of Fate. God's ruinous 
thunder is overhead, and Strafford "is doomed." 
Let no one " touch him." 

As the rebels leave the room, Strafford hurls 
after them a defiant, "Pym, we shall meet again!" 

It is with momentary surprise and yet unbounded 
relief that, on the entrance of Lady Carlisle, who 
says she knows all and has come in the hope of pre- 
venting his departure for his command, he turns to 
welcome her with, "You here, child.?" She strives 
to calm his agitation; but he continues feverishly 
in woe-begone mockery of his lot, that he will 
"make a sorry soldier" indeed, as he begins the 
knightly enterprise under the worst of auspices. 
These should be the best of auspices, to be sure. 



90 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

since the lady is there with her tender offices; but 
the adventurer is a poor old man, weary, with little 
military experience, and "far from sure" that he 
is not beset by false friends at every turn. Yet why 
grumble at one's fate? Forward, is the word ! For- 
ward against Scotland. Forward for glory and 
love, for "we shall die gloriously," as the story 
books say. "To Scotland.? " she interposes; he must 
not go to Scotland. Why not? he queries causti- 
cally. Is he sick like her "good brother, brave 
Northumberland," whose command he takes? 
Why should he not leave a Court whose walls seem 
to be "falling" on him? 

Is there no danger elsewhere? rejoins the woman 
who would keep him back from that perilous un- 
dertaking in the North, so bodeful of his ultimate 
undoing. 

The wind that saps these walls can undermine 

Your camp in Scotland, too. Whence creeps the wind? 

Have you no eyes except for Pym? 

Rather, the danger is set in motion by old Vane, 
who, however valiantly Strafford may "rush on 
the Scots," shall spoil the success with some slight- 
est sneer, "adjust the praise, suggest the faint re- 
sult." There is no escaping Vane's sneer; it will 
reach him even in Scotland. 

His look of dreamy abstraction brings the Coun- 
tess's plea to a sudden close with an impatient, 
"You do not listen!" 

One cannot escape one's fate. An air of resigna- 
tion, almost of hopelessness, supersedes the look of 
wan introspection in Strafford's eyes. The Court is 
beyond him ; he gives them all " quite up." It is " so 



STRAFFORD 91 

idle to withstand" them that he cares not what 
"Vane does or Holland does." And he goes on 
in spite of the silent rebuke in the Countess's 
eyes. He wants "a little strife" besides; some "real 
strife"; "this petty palace-warf are " does him 
harm; he "shall feel better, fairly out of it." A 
smile of confidence on his lips provokes her further 
concern. But he proceeds. He had gotten "to fear 
them." At first he "could have torn his throat" 
— old Vane's, as "he leered ... on his stealthy 
way to the Queen's closet." How "one loses heart " ; 
else certainly he should have said, "Do not traduce 
me to her!" 

Lady Carlisle is about to explain the true atti- 
tude of the King, but Wentworth interrupts her 
with a vivid recital of the King's recent assurances. 
"Be my friend of friends," was the royal whisper. 
His King! He would have sworn him true and 
died for him; he "can die for him" now. 

"Charles never loved you," is her wild protest. 
He must not go; he "must renounce this project 
on the Scots." 

Strafford calmly admits one of her assertions: 
true, the King does not love him, and, what is 
more, he never will. 

He's not of those who care the more for men 
That they're unfortunate. 

After so much admitted, it is with pointed eager- 
ness that the Countess inquires, "Then wherefore 
die for such a master .f^" 

But the point of the inquiry is lost on Strafford 
just as the cause of his infatuation for Charles has 



92 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

been lost upon her; and she winces with the knowl- 
edge he now reveals in all its nakedness that she 
it was. Lady Carlisle, who first told him "how 
good" the King was, how true a friend; how his 
mere return from Ireland would supplant "Vane, 
Savile, and the rest " in the King's heart. Realizing 
Wentworth's unalterable infatuation for his sover- 
eign and his consequent determination to serve 
him at any cost, she exclaims hopelessly, — 

Then, friend, 
I shall not see you any more. 

Yes, he will return. There is "one man here" he 
has to meet. 

She guesses that man to be the King. Then, 
ruing the day she first taught Strafford to love the 
King, she resolves to cure his infatuation with a 
glimpse of her own bared soul. She would speak 
to him; but he must avert his gaze, else she can- 
not do so. She would save him. She will, she must, 
confess it: she loves him. But she will say so only 
as it were from afar off. She has borne for so long 
now one only image in her mind, an image which 
has eclipsed all other light there. Yes, it is "a weak- 
ness, like a flaw in the diamond" which, because 
it can suggest the vision of "some sweet face," is 

treasured there, 
Lest nature lose her gracious thought forever! 

Her eyes, stealing a furtive glance at him whose 
heart she would touch, are arrested by a look of 
deep abstraction on his face. He is not listening. 
What is that he is saying.? "When could it be.?" 
When could what be? "The day," he explains. 



STRATFORD 93 

they "waited in the anteroom, till Holland should 
leave the presence-chamber" — the day he de- 
scribed to her his "love for Charles." What an en- 
grossing passion! With steadfast gaze she muses 
to herself: 

One must not lure him from a love like that! 
Oh, let him love the King and die! 

Yet, surely, she " shall not serve him worse for that 
one brief and passionate hope" of hers, "silent for- 
ever now." She hides her concern by resuming her 
natural vivacity. Is he "really bound for Scotland 
then"? She wishes him well. He must be "very 
sure of the King's faith; for Pym and all his crew 
will not be idle," not to mention Vane. 

Wentworth beseeches her to write of Pym in the 
event of Pym's activity. 

She cannot forego the indulgence of her jealousy. 
"What need," she asks, since there is his "King to 
take his part"? 

Awakening to a tardy consciousness of her self- 
revelation, he places his hand on her head with 
the caressing words, 

Child, your hair 
Is glossier than the Queen's! 

"Is that to ask a curl of me?" An arch smile 
accompanies the naive question. She severs a 
strand and extends it winningly. He sighs, reluc- 
tant to take up his command in Scotland. She 
accepts his reluctance as pain at leaving her be- 
hind, and, stepping forward, offers to fasten her 
gift on his bosom; but catching a glimpse of the 
ribbon of the George placed there by the hand of 



94 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Charles, and mistaking it for "a rival's " token, 
she starts back in a flutter of consternation. To 
dispel the absurd suspicion, he displays the glitter- 
ing badge to the full, explains that the King placed i 
it there, and invites her to hallow the gift by twining 
her token around it. She escapes from his embrace 
with a word of rebuke at her own folly. She trifles 
so! she must be gone. "There's a masque on foot. 
Farewell. The Court is dull." He must enliven it 
with news of great things done in Scotland. It is 
expected of him. 

"I shall not fail in Scotland," says Strafford 
hopefully. 

May he prosper — if he will think of her some- 
times. 

How can he think of the King and not of her, of 
her who is "the lingering streak (a golden one)" in 
his "good fortune's eve"? 

She is about to yield to the pathos of his deep , 

despair by nestling in his outstretched arms, but I 

checking the impulse, says simply, — 

Well, when the eve has its last streak, ' 

The night has its first star 

— and she is gone. ( 

What a sweet soft voice she has! So soft "you'd } 

think she had a heart sometimes" — soft as the j 

King's, perhaps as false. The tense silence gives ' 

Strafford's thoughts the insistence of speech. He 
breathes a prayer for the deluded King, whom 
only God can save now. May God guard his bed 
and guard his path. But England's path? "Where 
is England's path? And Strafford's?" How they 



STRAFFORD 95 

diverge — his country's good and his own neces- 
sity. See the long "forlorn way among the tombs" 
which his own "foot must follow" till he can tread 
safely again in the way of his country's good and 
his own peace. Peace? Why that face, "huge in 
the dusk"? It is Pym. He has "Pym to face" . . . 
a foe to close with and a fight to fight at last worthy 
his soul. And whoso beards the King, either in the 
market-place or in "the whited sepulchre of White- 
hall," has Strafford, the King's defender, to reckon 
with. Not in the market-place, surely; for there he 
is trusted — there the rough artisans are "proud 
to catch a glimpse of Wentworth," confident that, 
though hungry at close of the weary day, the end 
must be some time, for is not Wentworth watching 
for their sake? — No, the danger is not there, but 
in that cursed plague-spot, the Court! — Let him 
curse nothing. But one name is cursed everywhere 
in the city's streets to-night. And whose the fault? 
Did Strafford make kings? Did Strafford, at the 
first, "set up a man to represent the multitude," 
to be loved instead of them? Did he, Strafford, 
make that king to be so attractive, so mild and per- 
suasive in all his ways, that the man in him be- 
comes loved despite the king — the man with the 
"mild voice and mournful eyes" who now has 
sent him forth "to breast the bloody sea" beyond 
"with one star for guide." Yes, Lady Carlisle 
was right: — 

Night has its first, supreme, forsaken star. 



96 STORIES FROM BROWNING 



StraflPord, having hastened to take charge of his 
command in the North, has met with reverses; 
and, to combat their bad effect, the King has sum- 
moned the Parliament, which is now in session in 
Westminster Hall. In a street opposite Westmin- 
ster have gathered Sir Henry Vane, Lord Savile, 
Lord Holland, and others of the Court Cabal. Hol- 
land and Savile have just been ejected from the 
House at the instance of Pym and his coadjutors 
in the League; and Vane, having escaped their 
humiliation through absence, has hurried up to 
Savile and Holland for confirmation of the news 
of their ejectment. He can scarcely believe it to 
be true. And they, with some impatience and tes- 
tiness, inquire what has kept him from sharing 
the incivility. 

Their heat sets him on fire. Kept him? Cer- 
tainly he has had good reason to be away. The 
news from Scotland has kept him — news that is 
worse, if possible, than the last. "All's up with 
Strafford there." And now there is nothing to pre- 
vent the "mad Scots" from marching on London 
the "next Lord's day morning." It was that which 
detained him. But he is all eagerness to hear how 
they have fared. What was the order of business 
before they were thrust out? Was their program 
carried? Did their agent, Lenthal, act his part 
well and say all they had set down for him? 

Yes, Lenthal has done perfectly, not missing a 
word of his instructions, declares Holland. But be- 
fore Lenthal began his part, Savile and Holland 



STRAFFORD 97 

with Bristol and some more having entered the 
new Parliament in the hope of overawing it by 
their united presence, were met by "such a gang 
of graceless ruffians," who returned stare for stare, 
that that portion of the plan was thwarted. The 
"burly knaves" were there in goodly numbers, and 
Vane's "hopeful son among them," with Hampden, 
think of it! leaning upon his shoulder. 

Vane waives that as beside the point of his con- 
cern. What he would like to get at is Lenthal's 
speech. What did Lenthal say.^^ Did he urge grati- 
tude for "this unlooked for summons from the 
King" and the great danger "that the Scots will 
march on London"? 

Precisely; just as he was drilled. And he made 
so much of the danger that all seemed fair sailing, 
and the House was just on the point of granting 
" a dozen subsidies," when there occurred a most 
unexpected interruption. It was the strangest 
thing in the world, and it all happened so suddenly 
that but a "vague memory " of it remains. Holland 
can recall nothing distinctly — only "a kind of 
vast unnatural voice." It was Pym speaking. 
Holland tries to recall the words, but failing, turns 
to Savile to be helped out. But together they can 
call to mind only a few broken phrases: "work for 
England," "England's great revenge"; how they 
— the Court Party — were "strangers" to it, as 
they were to all of England's work. Through it 
all Pym was looking them straight in the face; 
and the plain substance of it was that their "pres- 
ence might be spared." The expulsion followed 
"in the twinkling of an eye," and there they are! 



98 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Vane's comment that the ejectment was quite 
the natural thing with the League, schooled as they 
are in the methods of their former leader, Eliot, 
whom they venerate, — Eliot whom they have 
sainted, — provokes the prickly retort from Sav- 
ile that Vane's habitual references to Eliot and the 
way Parliaments should be managed are growing 
tiresome. Let Vane bear in mind that, since he 
does not relish the issue of this Parliament, it was 
he. Vane himself, who "advised the Queen to 
summon" it. 

Savile's answer provokes this responsive splutter 
from Vane : Savile needs to be reminded that he has 
"done the best of turns to Strafford" in setting the 
Scots on him, well-nigh compassing his defeat. 
Strafford is at York now for reasons that are clear 
to everybody; it would have been far better had 
he not set the Scots on Strafford till Strafford had 
put down Pym. 

The altercation is interrupted by the appearance 
of a messenger from the Queen. He is out of breath, 
sent in hot haste to summon them — the occasion, 
"something perilous and strange." But the inter- 
ruption is only momentary; for, as they turn in the 
street at Westminster to follow the messenger afoot 
to Whitehall, they continue the controversy with 
charge and countercharge, Savile denouncing the 
Parliament the King had summoned at Vane's 
persuasion as a calamity, and Vane darkly hinting 
that Strafford's untimely betrayal into the hands of 
the Scots lies at Savile's door. Holland interposes 
that at such time of the Queen's need it was a 
graceless thing to quarrel; that in the end Pym will 



STRAFFORD 99 

overmatch the best of them all unless they hang 
together. So they go on, hot-footed and in silence. 



VI 

At Whitehall the Queen is fretting at the meet- 
ing of Parliament and the threatened impeach- 
ment of the Earl of Strafford; not that she loves 
Strafford, but that she fears the advance of the 
Scots upon London during his absence from his 
command at York. She fears the Commons, so 
reluctantly called, and called solely to avert the 
disastrous issues of the war, lest they wreak all 
their spite upon the royal house; for the Com- 
mons, she believes, are dominated by Pym and 
the rebel League, those champions of the popular 
grievances, those implacable opponents of the 
King and Queen in their incessant clamor for 
subsidies. 

Strafford is known to have been sent for by the 
King. Lady Carlisle expects his arrival and be- 
seeches the Queen to do something to save him 
from Pym and the Parliament. Yet the Queen af- 
fects to believe that he will not come; that he would 
not dare to leave his post at York in the face of 
the threatened impeachment, of which he must 
know through advice of the King. Surely, even 
though he did not know of the charge, he would 
still be averse to coming during the session of the 
Parliament whose meeting he had vehemently op- 
posed. In reality she is deep in a quandary, and has 
just sent for advisers — Vane, Holland, and Savile 
— to resolve her doubts. She does this without the 



100 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

knowledge of the King, and perhaps also without 
that of Lady Carlisle, to whom she pretends that 
the King is away at Theobald's, his manor in Hert- 
fordshire. 

Lady Carlisle has assured her that it is indispu- 
tably true that the House has met, as reported, and 
that their meeting is for Strafford's impeachment. 
But the Queen clings to the idea that the impeach- 
ment cannot possibly be in progress now, as it would 
be quite contrary to all custom: 

, . . The old way 
Is to begin by talk of grievances : 
They have their grievances to busy them. 

Yet the fact is, custom or no custom, that "Pym 
has begun his speech." Lady Carlisle says this with 
an insistence that breaks down the Queen's stolid- 
ity for a brief moment and leads her to inquire 
quickly for Vane, for whom and the rest she has 
just dispatched a messenger. But she regains her 
composure as she urges the absurdity of Strafford's 
leaving his post as President of the North to face 
charges of impeachment in London. 

Yet the King has sent for him, and he will come. 
The Countess is firm in her position; and when re- 
minded that, if the King did send for him, he let 
him know also that it was imperative that the Par- 
liament be called, — "a step which Strafford was 
vehement against," — and that certainly opposi- 
tion to the Parliament would keep him away, she 
loses patience and lets fly a bitter jeer at the King's 
pitiful indecision with the Parliaments, first 
striking them to earth, and then "setting them 



STRAFFORD 101 

upon their feet and giving them a sword." Patient 
insistence gives way to vehement assertiveness 
in her decisive, "He will come." 

The Queen, all her defenses down, breaks out with 
the plaintive query, "And what am I to do.^^" 

"What to do?" She is passionately besought to 
do anything that will save Strafford. The price of 
the Queen's failure in her present enterprise is 
not too great for that. Ruin is nothing compared 
with such a service. Any way will do if it but achieve 
the credit of one effort, one single effort. 

Yet what can the Queen do with "the King away 
at Theobald's"? 

She can "send for him at once," and "he must 
dissolve the house." 

She can do nothing till Vane has confirmed the 
report; after that she will . . . 

What she would do is lost in Lady Carlisle's 
bitter despair. When Vane comes, it will matter 
little what the King does. Oh, the shame of thus 
deserting one who "lends his arm and breaks his 
heart" for the Crown. 

Vane, Holland, and Savile have separated; and 
they hasten to the Queen's presence, each with 
his own account of the doings of Parliament. Vane 
is the first to appear. He announces that the Com- 
mons are sitting behind "closed doors," with "a 
huge debate " in progress and "no lack of noise." 
Nothing, he should guess, has been done "con- 
cerning Strafford," and "Pym has certainly not 
spoken yet." This is comforting to the Queen, 
whose wish was father to the thought, and who 
turns to Lady Carlisle with a triumphant, "You 



102 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

hear?" as much as to say. Was I not right? Have I 
not said so all along? 

Lady Carlisle disdains the thrust with feeling. 
She has not heard that the King has been "sent for." 

The Queen's triumph is short-lived; for Holland, 
on entering, not only contradicts Vane with the 
message that Pym is on his feet and "raging like 
a fire," but adds the startling news — 

The whole House means 
To follow him together to Whitehall 
And force the King to give up Strafford. 

The Queen catches her breath in fear and as- 
tonishment. 

But that is not all. They may not "content 
themselves with Strafford." All the People's sup- 
posed enemies are swept in together by Pym's 
raging indictment. Laud, for example, "is talked 
of, Cottington and Windebank too." 

The Queen in a panic bids Vane "go find the 
King" and tell him of the advance upon White- 
hall. 

Relief follows anxiety; and Vane is recalled, as 
Savile, on entering, correq|| the false news of the 
general advance upon the royal palace. The 
House of Commons is proceeding to the House of 
Lords : — 

they seek redress 
On Strafford from his peers — the legal way. 
They call it. 

That is all. And Strafford really has nothing to 
fear, being safe at York, "in his own county." He 
will realize that the "Commons only mean to 



STRAFFORD 103 

frighten him from leaving York"; and "surely, 
he will not come." 

Lady Carlisle is emphatic in the reiteration of her 
conviction that Strafford, having been sent for, 
certainly will come. 

A sneer from Vane avails nothing. Of course it 
is Strafford's way to "bring destruction with him." 
Was it not so when "his coming spoilt all Conway's 
plan" of securing the passes of the Tyne.'^ But the 
King must choose his own friends and be ruled 
by Strafford's counsel. And "what's the result"? 
Look at the failure in the North. Let the Commons 
have their way and give Strafford the fright they 
doubtless intend. It will be a wholesome corrective. 

A fright from Pym? The idea receives Lady 
Carlisle's unhesitating scorn. "Pym will fail worse 
than Strafford if he thinks to frighten him." She 
turns to the Queen with a last appeal, "You will 
not save him then?" 

It is Savile and not the Queen who replies. There 
will be time enough to save "when something like 
a charge is made"; moreover, "the King will best 
know how to save him." The matter were best 
left to the King, who, while Strafford loses nothing, 
may "reap advantage." Clearly, while Strafford's 
conduct is the point of investigation in Parliament, 
the Crown will enjoy a welcome relief from the 
everlasting complaints concerning ship-money. 

The Queen seconds this argument, and turns to 
Lady Carlisle. The payment of the army is an- 
other matter to be considered; and who will do it if 
the Parliament is dissolved? Who, besides, will 
"protect" the throne "from the insolent Scots"? 



104 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Lady Carlisle does not profess to know. " Straf- 
ford's fate concerns" her "little." She was re- 
quested to say "what course would save him"; 
she obeys her Queen. 

The Queen and her counselors console them- 
selves with hope that aiffairs will turn out to their 
advantage. Strafford pitted against Pym will save 
them from Pym's attack; and there is much hope 
there since Strafford, being vindictive, is likely to 
seek "full revenge." On the other hand, who would 
waste sympathy on Strafford.^ Why should he not 
have a share in the general misfortune.? Has he not 
been thoroughly trusted by the King, and has he 
not ill repaid him.? Be assured he will stay at York 
until all blows over; and then he will return, chas- 
tened with a little wholesome humiliation, and 
"thankful" for some place under as good a man. 
Oh, yes, they shall be spared the pleasure of Straf- 
ford's company "for a month or two"! 

It is with mingled feelings of surprise and con- 
sternation that their idle chatter is interrupted by 
the triumphant entrance of Strafford. 

With confidence written on his forehead, Strafford 
meets the Queen's surprised "You here!" with the 
calm assertion, "The King sends for me, madam"; 
and interrupts her, as she is about to explain that 
the King is away at Theobald's, saying quietly that 
the matter is urgent and concerns his Majesty. 

Lady Carlisle extends a proud welcome with 
happy words and joyous smiles; but the sinister 
presence of the Cabal as they retire, muttering and 
shrugging, to a remote corner of the chamber, at 
once excites his suspicions. 



STRAFFORD 105 

The Countess, however, overlooking his sudden 
concern, continues her welcome. They are happy 
to have him back. They are proud of him. He was 
"stanch at Durham " ; he did well there. Had he not 
"been stayed," he might have . . . she was about 
to say that he might have won at Durham, but is 
checked with the thought that the word would be 
only a painful reminder of his reverses there; so 
repeats that their hope is in him. 

Here Vane comes to say the "Queen would 
speak" with her; and Strafford somewhat haugh- 
tily requests that one of them, "his servants here, 
vouchsafe to signify" his "presence to the King." 

"An urgent matter?" is Savile's mocking 
query. 

Strafford parries. No matter that touches Lord 
Savile. Suppose "it were some treacherous, sly, 
pitiful intriguing with the Scots," why, Savile, 
at least, would go free. For, aside from the royal 
summons, it is the Cabal's traitorous conspiracy 
with the Scots that makes immediate cause for 
his return to the Court. In the bitterness of his 
retort, he has unguardedly allowed himself to al- 
lude to that conspiracy; but checking himself in 
fear of having revealed too much, and addressing 
the Queen, he again asks for audience with the 
King — the service he would render much concerns 
him. 

The Queen is confused. His Majesty may be 
away, she stammers, retiring to a far end of the 
room for conference with Vane and Holland. 

The importance of his service, then, "must plead 
excuse" for his withdrawal, and the manifest "grief 



106 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

it gives Lord Savile," says Strafford, as he turns to 
leave. 

But the Queen, who has been speaking apart 
with Vane and Holland, turns quickly, saying, 
"The King will see you, sir ! " Then, drawing Lady 
Carlisle aside, she whispers that there is little 
need of fretting about the Parliament now; the 
impeachment of Strafford, or his vindication, must 
be over by this time. Let them appear to know 
nothing. Otherwise they should only arouse sus- 
picion "in the world's eye" and "work no good to 
Strafford." Thus trying to retain Lady Carlisle 
for the side of the Cabal, the Queen leaves her to 
approach Strafford with an assuring smile — "His 
Majesty has much to say with you " — and then re- 
turns to whisper to the knot of agitated counselors. 

Strafford tries to hide his apprehension, as he 
replies with affected unconcern: "Time fleeting, 
too!" But he cannot deceive the Countess. "No 
means of getting them away? " he asks her. What is 
all this whispering about? Does the Queen know 
his purpose? They must be gotten away. 

The Queen hastens back to Lady Carlisle to 
repeat her injunction that Strafford is to know 
nothing from them of the Parliament and the Par- 
liament's action concerning him. "He thinks the 
danger far off." Let him continue to think so. 
There will be help in time; and till the time comes, 
Lucy, so "self-possessed and calm," must keep him 
in play. With raised voice she again gives Straf- 
ford assurance that the King will be summoned; 
and, to spare his "lordship some delay," she will 
herself "acquaint the King." An expressive glance 



STRAFFORD 107 

accompanies a whispered "Beware!" to Lady Car- 
lisle. The Queen leaves the room, followed by Vane, 
Holland, and Savile. Lady Carlisle is left to enter- 
tain Strafford until the King will see him. She does 
entertain him, but little in accord with the Queen's 
instructions. It is with unsuppressed feelings that 
each approaches the other, Strafford with the eager 
question, "She knows it?" and the Countess with 
the supplicating appeal, "Tell me, Strafford!" 
She would know what his plans are. He would learn 
if the Queen knows his purpose — he little surmises 
how well she knows it, although unaware of his 
definite plans. Then what is the scheme? Quick, 
let him have the whole of it. 

"He would learn if they connive at Pym's pro- 
cedure," is her silent thought. If only the King 
could have been apprised; "but there's no time for 
falsehood, now," she reflects. Lifting her eyes, she 
announces that the "whole is known," known by 
the Cabal, and "hardly discountenanced." True, 
the "King's not yet informed," but he "will not 
dare to interpose." 

Strafford makes no effort to hide his vexation. 
Why wait any longer? "There's no counting on 
the King." The declaration is made with light 
laughter and a knowing manner, which the Count- 
ess is at loss to understand. Could it be possible 
that Strafford would joy "at the King's hollo w- 
ness"? she asks herself. In reality Strafford is 
thinking of his victory over the Scots at Durham, 
a victory won in spite of the King and in direct 
disobedience to the King's orders. That explains 
his levity, which so puzzles the Countess. 



108 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

When all should be over, he knew that the King 
and Queen would be glad of it, in spite of their 
blundering efforts at help. He had "tried obedience 
thoroughly," had taken "the King's wild plan"; 
but, as he had expected, before he could reach the 
army Conway had "ruined it." Then, drawing " the 
wrecks together," he had "raised all heaven and 
earth" to fight the Scots, but the King had "at 
once made truce with them." 

In the solemnity of the step he has taken and the 
mad joy of that enterprise, his voice deepens to a 
caressing richness : 

God put it in my mind to love, serve, die 
For Charles, but never to obey him more! 

For while the King "endured their insolence at 
Ripon," Strafford, by a swift and secret cavalry 
movement, fell on them in their quarters at Dur- 
ham and defeated a large body of them. Will she 
tell the King that he has waited, and waited pa- 
tiently? And he adds, "All the anteroom is filled 
with my adherents." 

Lady Carlisle cannot believe her ears. "What 
daring act is this.^^" 

Daring? Not so daring, as she will admit when 
she knows. Here is the evidence, "ample proof," 
"damning proof." He draws forth the papers 
from the breast of his coat and specifies the in- 
dictment: Bedford, Essex, Brooke, Warwick, Sav- 
ile, Saye, and Mandeville — all have been "sold 
to the Scots, body and soul, by Pym." Is this 
the matter the Queen knows so well and has ap- 
proved? 



STRAFFORD 109 

Lady Carlisle's utter astonishment is an eloquent 
no to that question. 

The whole circle of them, "from Savile and his 
lords to Pym and his losels," are " crushed !--Pym 
shall not ward the blow nor Savile creep aside from 
it! The Crew and the Cabal" — he crushes them! 

He turns on his heel. 

Is he going? — going now.^^ Fright takes the place 
of astonishment. 

Yes, but "about no work in the background." 
His movements are above board and open to the 
daylight. He is going "straight to the House of 
Lords to claim these knaves." And, suiting the 
action to the word, he raises his voice to call his 
adherents. "Mainwaring!" he shouts. 

No, Lady Carlisle must not try to prevent. It 
is the only thing to do. It is the best course to take. 
Besides, the Queen will soon be back with "some 
little project of her own! No time to lose"; and the 
King, too, may be scenting danger. 

No dissuasion will touch Strafford ; and a warning 
reference to the strength of the League under Pym's 
leadership serves but to arouse his withering scorn. 
"One and all they lodge within the Tower to-night 
in just equality," the leader with the led. A second 
time he calls, "Bryan! Mainwaring!" 

The lieutenants burst in, followed by many of 
Strafford's trusted adherents. 

He addresses them, serving a commission upon 
each. The Countess, too, is given a duty to do. It 
is "a lucky chance" that the Peers debate just now 
on the war with Scotland; no time more opportune. 
Bryan, when the debate is over, must proceed to 



110 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Ireland with dispatches, these "for the Deputy, 
and these for Ormond." The Irish army must be 
hurried to London, as the dispatches provide. 
Another is sent to York. Mainwaring must guard 
all doors in London so that none escape, and wait 
"to execute the Parliament's command" against 
the traitors. 

Does Lady Carlisle think him revengeful? She 
would not, did she "know what these men dare!" 

Her fear is that they dare very, very much. 

Confidence and triumph mark his ready reply. 
Truly they do dare much — he proved that long 
ago. But his turn has come now. Goring must 
keep a sharp watch "on the citizens," and see to it 
that no sympathizer "harbors any of the brood." 
Lady Carlisle, his "Lucy," shall also have part 
and lot in the work. Her task shall be to deliver 
a message of the exploit to Bishop Laud, who, 
he knows, "will not be the slowest" in his praise. 
Perhaps it is "foolish, to be so glad!" This life, 
after so many reverses, so much pain of mind and 
body, has regained its brightness. Let Lucy mark 
this: 'T is worth while to have foes like his "just 
for the bliss of crushing them." This day "is worth 
the living for." 

The Countess marks his flushed face. He must 
not so perturb himself. 

Oh, he is well. Does he not look well? And on 
such a day? He "could not but be well on such a 
day!" 

And, this day ended, 't is of slight import 
How long the ravaged frame subjects the soul 
In Strafford. 



STRAFFORD 111 

Her admiration finds utterance in the ardent 
exclamation, "Noble Strafford!" 

Strafford turns to go. She looks the expected 
leave-taking. No, "no farewell," he says. He will 
see her again to-morrow — the first thing in the 
morning. Now, every moment is precious. The 
Queen may come and spoil all. 

A faintness seizes her, and he runs to her side to 
support her. With an effort she regains her strength 
and bids him go, if he must. It "is nothing"; only 
her "heart that swells: it has been thus ere now." 
Yes, he may go. 

Well, then, he will see her to-night. Meanwhile, 
he must see the King; then he will see her, "the 
next after Him." He will hasten back to tell her 
how Pym looked under the ordeal. He must be off. 

Follow me, friends! 
You, gentlemen, shall see a sight this hour 
To talk of all your lives. 

Now shall his loyalty to the King be proved, and 
now his desert of the King's crowning approbation, 
"My friend of friends!" 

As^their retreating figures swing out in deter- 
mined strides. Lady Carlisle muses upon the strange 
fascination the King exerts upon this her hero. 
The King fills his horizon. The King is his world, 
with "no thought of one beside, whose little word 
unveils the King to him," — her word, which yet 
she will not breathe. She has spared him a pang in 
withholding the King's perfidy, and will seek no 
reward beyond the consciousness and memory of 
having done so. Surely, too, in "some way," in 



112 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

some other ways, "he is the better for" her love. 
It is her constant prayers that at last have brought 
him joy and lit that new sparkle in his eyes. That 
is an inspiration that reaches the farthest regions 
of her soul, as slowly she leaves the deserted room. 



VII 

The Earl of Strafford has hastened away with 
his followers — Main waring, Bryan, and others — 
from the Queen's presence at Whitehall to the meet- 
ing of the House of Lords at Westminster. At the 
doors his entrance is disputed by Maxwell, Usher 
of the Black Rod; and the Earl, not to be thwarted, 
strikes him and passes on, taking his place among 
his peers. 

Immediately the antechamber where the blow 
was dealt is filled with partisans of both sides. A 
group of Presbyterians gather and are rudely 
jostled by Strafford's adherents. The air is charged 
with rumors. Retort follows retort from one side 
to the other. There is a general craning of necks 
among the Presbyterians toward the doors where 
the brief scuffle was and from which Strafford has 
just disappeared. One would hearten his com- 
panions before their swaggering opponents. An- 
other sees no good in the great army at Strafford's 
back. A third wishes that Pym had made haste to 
forestall the event. 

The followers of Strafford take no pains to hide 
their contempt of the Presbyterian "worthies," as 
one calls them. Another, with unbounded faith in 
the downfall of Pym, sours his visage with mock 



STRAFFORD 113 

Puritanical piety to quote, "Where the carcass is 
there shall the eagles" — But, before he has finished, 
a third interjects, "For eagles say crows." 

The Presbyterians are there to support Max- 
well, the Usher, and one of them thunders at the 
jostling "rufflers," "Stand back, sirs!" Hot words 
follow, in which one of Strafford's adherents does 
not hesitate to deride the King's person: "There's 
Some-one at Whitehall who skulks obscure." It is 
a contemptuous fling at the high-handed airs of 
"King Pym" in brow-beating King Charles. The 
rough bluster is meant to hide a secret misgiving, 
which betrays itself in the nervous tone of one 
who inquires among his fellows for St. John, 
whose arrest the Earl had assigned to him; and 
in another's anxiety that the Earl's enemies 
had closed about him so promptly after the 
doors to the House of Lords had swung behind 
him. 

Suddenly the doors open; and Maxwell, the 
Usher, appears in the entrance to turn back the 
crowd and open a passage-way through it. "Stand 
back! a great thing passes here," is his command. 
Jeers assail him from here and there among Straf- 
ford's partisans: " Do you feel the Earl's hand yet 
upon your shoulder. Maxwell?" "Say, Maxwell, 
what great thing! Speak out!" 

An unsuspecting Puritan joins the press from 
without and is at once attacked with merciless 
banter by Strafford's followers, whom he mistakes 
for his own party. "King Pym has fallen," they 
assure him; and not Pym only, but Vane, Rudyard, 
Hampden, and St. John as well. He swallows the 



114 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

bait with solemn comment: "Pride before destruc- 
tion, a haughty spirit goeth before a fall." 

The doors at the back begin to open, letting out 
much noise and a bright light; and again is heard 
Maxwell's roar above the commotion: "Stand 
back, all!" More banter assails the Puritan. Now 
is the time for another text. And he quotes again 
at a lucky guess : — 

How hath the oppressor ceased! 
The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked! 
The sceptre of the rulers, he who smote 
The people in wrath with a continual stroke. 
That ruled the nations in his anger — he 
Is persecuted and none hindereth! 

The doors are flung wide, and the Earl of Straf- 
ford issues in the greatest disorder, and amid cries 
from within of "Void the House!" The Puritan's 
quotation gathers meaning; but its grim elemen- 
tal humor is quickly dissipated in the tragedy 
that ensues and the news of the tragedy just 
enacted. 

For the Earl of Strafford, immediately on finding 
himself within the doors of the House of Lords, was 
robbed of all accusing thunder by the incriminat- 
ing assaults of Pym, whose voice rang out through 
the tense silence with a stern demand for Straf- 
ford's impeachment on the unequivocal grounds of 
naked treason. "Traitor!" was the sharp word 
flung at the Earl, and the outcry was immediately 
followed by unceremonious ejectment. 

Trembling with the shock of surprise, panting 
under the sting of humiliation, and muttering angry 
regrets at not having struck the "felon on that 



STRAFFORD 115 

calm insulting mouth," he is here seized by Max- 
well and bidden, "in the Commons' name" to yield 
his sword. He draws it, but not to surrender. 

"Let us go forth," he shouts to his adherents; 
"follow me, gentlemen! Draw your swords too: 
cut any down that bar us. On the King's service! 
Maxwell, clear the way!" But escape is prevented 
by the avenging Presbyterians, who, likewise draw- 
ing their swords, crowd before him in the passage 
to the street. — No matter. There is no need of 
violence. Another way will serve as well. 

Seizing tablets from one in the throng, he quickly 
writes a message and gives it to Mainwaring at his 
side to dispatch at once to the King. Maxwell need 
not concern himself "for the next half -hour," at 
least. Let violence cease. He shall have the sword 
peaceably. As Maxwell advances to take it, a sud- 
den revulsion of feeling causes Strafford to change 
his mind. He withdraws the weapon and sends it 
ringing back into its sheath. No, he cannot part 
with that. Nothing can recompense the loss of that, 
not even the blood of his accusers. When the King 
lays Maxwell's head beneath the foot of the ac- 
cused, "it will not pay for that." Strafford's sword 
will remain in Strafford's keeping. Let them be 
gone, all of them! 

Maxwell dares to disobey. He will not be gone 
and commands that none of his party stir. 

Bryan makes a movement as if to dislodge the 
officer, but is persuaded by his leader to desist. 

There is worse in store for the Earl of Strafford. 
Mainwaring either could not or would not find a 
way out of the press, and the message to the King 



116 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

remains unsent. The Presbyterian "curs" are ap- 
pealed to, on promise of immunity from the death 
which is sure to overtake them; but none will save 
his life at that price. 

Through the closed doors from the Commons 
within, come loud calls of "Strafford!" 

With quickening apprehension the Earl turns to 
Slingsby: — 

Slingsby, I Ve loved you at least: make haste! 
Stab me! I have not time to tell you why. 

But Slingsby cannot. Neither can Bryan, nor 
Mainwaring, each appealed to in turn. But why 
not.f^ Is it because, as commander of the royal 
forces, Strafford "spoke so hastily at Allerton"? 
Well, "the King had vexed" him. 

He turns his bosom to the Presbyterians, but 
not even they will strike. No? If he lives over this, 
the King is sure to have their heads, let them know 
that. Half aloud he muses: "But what if I can't 
live this minute through.?" Can he survive "Pym, 
who is there with his pursuing smile!" Whether 
unnerved by the thought or braced by it, he turns 
from it in the shock of hearing louder cries of 
"Strafford!" from behind the closed doors. 

In his need his mind again reverts to the King. 
Has the King forsaken him.f^ Ah, he sees it all clearly 
now. Strafford has become troublesome to the 
King, having "stood in the way of his negotiations " 
for peace with Scotland. Is that the cause .^^ Yet the 
King sent for him from York, guaranteeing his 
safety besides, and — preparing a Parliament for 
his trial at the same time! That was the meaning 



STRAFFORD 117 

of the Queen's whispering at WTiitehall. How trans- 
parent the trap ! He sees it all ! 

The perfidy ! He chokes. Tearing off the George, 
he treads it underfoot and casts a memory from 
him. WTiat matters else? Let "one stroke" befall, 
ending everything! 

Renewed cries of " Strafford " surge through 
the doors, and he is disarmed by his own ad- 
herents. 

At the sound, a new thought nerves him: the 
vision of England and England's supreme good. 
He presses toward the doors, praying leave to pro- 
ceed. As he reaches them, they open wide, reveal- 
ing Hampden and a crowd of the League and their 
sympathizers in waiting, and Pym standing at the 
bar some space apart. Strafford kneels, accepting 
trial before the realm. 



vm 

The trial of the Earl of Strafford before the joint 
session of the Commons and the Lords on the 
charge of treason has been in progress for eighteen 
days. Representatives from both Ireland and Scot- 
land have been sitting with the Commons. The 
Peers are serving as judges at the trial. Neither 
has the King been absent, having witnessed the 
proceedings every day from behind a screen in the 
gallery. A crisis has been reached in the introduc- 
tion, on the motion of Pym, of a Bill of Attainder 
against the Earl; and it is expected that on this, 
the eighteenth day of the trial, Strafford will rise 
to defend himself. 



118 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

It is not strange, then, that tense expectancy 
charges the air in the royal circle at Whitehall. The 
King, much troubled by the situation, has given 
audience about the matter to HoUis, Strafford's 
brother-in-law and, at the same time, member of the 
League of which Pym is the champion. Besides 
the Queen, there is present the Lady Carlisle. In 
the background lurk aloof the Cabal — Vane, Hol- 
land, and Savile — whom HoUis disdains; and who 
will not, perhaps dare not, come forward during 
Hollis's presence. 

The Queen's manner also is strikingly hostile to 
Hollis, who, in his turn, is reserved and cold; bitter 
in speech and haughty in silence. The King is 
suave as always, and, indeed, supplicating to Hollis 
at first; but as Hollis continues his message, the 
King's manner changes to one of marked concern, 
if not agitation, and later rises to an unwonted 
pitch of determination. Lady Carlisle, perfectly 
in sympathy with Hollis's efforts, approves them 
with warmth and grace of word and demeanor; 
and deeply concerned in the fate of the Earl, re- 
ceives the royal charge respecting him with be- 
trayal of tender est affection. 

Hollis has come from the trial to make a plea for 
the liberation of his brother-in-law; and, after hear- 
ing much talk from Charles, professing grief at the 
issue, stands shocked into silence by the presence 
of the Queen and the Cabal and, above all, by the 
temporizing tactics of the King. 

But Lady Carlisle sees hope in the situation, and 
implores Hollis to break silence. For Strafford's 
sake let him answer them. Only "one word!" 



STRAFFORD 119 

Charles seconds the appeal by adverting to their 
old friendship and common childhood. For old 
times' sake Hollis should speak. No, the King is 
pleading in good faith; let the memory of those 
other times bear witness. It was his dream that 
the People loved him, their King. Yet what won- 
der, were it otherwise .^^ But one more disappoint- 
ment added to the rest! 

Hollis protests that he is not deceived. Rather, 
the King is deceiving himself in the hollow belief 
that all that can be done for Strafford "has been 
done." 

The boldness of these words and their unfeigned 
scorn rouses the Queen to come forward slyly with 
the supposition, if they "kill Strafford" — but, 
checking herself, she adds beneath her breath — 
"come, we grant you leave." 

Hollis, outraged by the imputation, and thinking 
the interview to be futile, rises to withdraw, but is 
intercepted by Lady Carlisle's earnest entreaty to 
stay and "hear them out! 'T is the last chance 
for Strafford!" Hollis must "hear them out! 

The Queen's insult rankles. "Kill Strafford? 
They, the Commons, or the League, or anybody, 
kill Strafford "on the eighteenth day" of the 
trial.? 

Charles hastens to charge the implication to 
Pym — Pym, who guides the Commons. 

"Ah, true," is the retort. The King must know, 
witnessing as he does from "the screened gallery" 
the Commons' proceedings every day. Yet just 
there is the opportunity for error. The screened 
gallery admits of only a "partial glimpse" of the 






120 STORIES PROM BROWNING 

House, Pym taking up "all the room" and shut- 
ting out "the view," and engrossing all attention. 
Yet the "rest of the place is not unoccupied." 

The Commons sit 
— That's England; Ireland sends, and Scotland too. 
Their representatives; the Peers that judge 
Are easily distinguished; one remarks 
The People here and there; but the close curtaia 
Must hide so much! 

The Queen cannot ignore this cool insolence. 
"This day the curtain shall be dashed aside!" It 
has served its purpose. 

Hollis's derision knows no abatement. "This 
very day.? Ere Strafford rises to defend himself?" 
What an opportune time ! 

Charles, too, feels the sting. The King will defend 
him. The King will "sanction the past this day": 
it ever was the King's purpose to defend him. Let 
Hollis rage at the King, not at Strafford! 

Lady Carlisle forgets all other feeling in admira- 
tion for the King. "Nobly!" is her impetuous 
exclamation. "Will he not do nobly?" she asks 
of every one. 

The King will "do honestly; and, for that deed,'*^ 
Hollis "too would be a king." The comment is 
made with more than usual emotion but hardly 
less of contempt in word and feature. 

And perhaps the feeling is justified by the King's 
weak hesitation — a return of indecision. To inter- 
fere now is to be what Hollis himself would term 
"deaf to subjects' prayers." It does not seem well 
to oppose the Commons now when it is "so pal- 
pably their will the trial should proceed." Or is the 



STRAFFORD 121 

King's wavering only feigned, as a retort in kind to 
Hollis's persistent irony? 

True, the King perils much. Yet Strafford, the 
King's "prime support, the sole roof -tree which 
props this quaking House of Privilege" deserves 
some risk, for without that support the whole 
structure may fall. Hollis utters this with grave 
earnestness; but momentary hope is submerged in 
returning cynicism at the King's irresolution. 
"Doubtless, if the mere putting forth an arm 
could save" Strafford, the King would save 
him. 

The scorpion has its sting. There is a shade of 
fear in the supple whine of the royal manner: "And 
they dare consummate calmly this great wrong!" 

— Strafford's execution! Is there "no hope? This 
ineffaceable wrong! No pity then?" 

Hollis can no longer endure the shame of the 
spectacle. Is there "no plague in store for per- 
fidy? Farewell!" His mission is ended. To Lady 
Carlisle he would say that it was for her sake he 
came "to save the Earl." Thank God that he has 
learned "how far such perfidy can go!" The idea 
that one who has just ruined Strafford should pre- 
tend to help in the rescue is preposterous. 

The King maintains composure with effort. In- 
comprehensible! The King has ruined Strafford? 

— "and how?" 

How indeed ! By indirection, inaction, weakness. 
The trial has been in progress for eighteen days; 
and for eighteen days the Earl has thrown, "one 
after one, Pym's charges back " — charges based 
on "blind, moth-eaten law." He will break away 



122 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

at last, a free man and vindicated; and who will 
there be to thank? Certainly not one who has 
stood tamely and idly by. 

Charles does not understand. What can Hollis 
mean? 

Clearly Hollis means that Pym unaided could not 
have brought about Strafford's conviction; that 
the necessary help was promptly and opportunely 
forthcoming from the royal party — that is, the 
Cabal — through the efficacious offices of Vane 
— Vane who stands so near the Queen, and by that 
token so near the King. This very day Sir Henry 
Vane has clinched the charge of treason in "Straf- 
ford's design of bringing up the troops to force this 
kingdom to obedience." This day has furnished the 
proof of that design. 

The King's surprise knows no bounds. " Vane? " 
Could it be possible? 

Did Vane deliver up or no 
Those notes which, furnished by his son to Pym, 
Seal Strafford's fate? 

Charles protests ignorance of anything "that 
Vane has done " and demands "What treason next?" 
He washes his hands of the perfidy. Vane is com- 
manded to "speak the truth!" Let Vane himself 
be asked. 

Hollis, who associates with such patriots as Pym 
and Hampden every day, cannot risk the contami- 
nation of speaking to Vane, at all. 

The Queen's hot anger returns. Let Hollis "speak 
to Vane's master then! What gain to him were 
Strafford's death?" 



STRAFFORD 123 

What gain? Hollis's invective cuts like a two- 
edged sword. The sure gain of putting away a 
servant whose usefulness has spent itself, and whose 
services, when known, will reflect little credit on the 
master who needed them. What a master, what a 
servant ! What devotion, what perfidy ! Can Straf- 
ford turn on the assailant, bid him stand forth, "de- 
mand if every hateful act " done in the King's serv- 
ice " were not set down " in the commission from that 
King; demand whether that King "contrived or no 
that all the violence should seem" the servant's 
work, and the "gentle ways" the King's own; con- 
trived that the servant's part should be "to coun- 
teract the King's kind impulses," and, while he 
seemed to disobey, to be authorized to the dis- 
obedience by a certain counter-charge, to be used 
as occasion might arise .^ Can the servant thus 
stand up in his own defense.'^ Ah, the master knows 
all perfectly well; knows all the accused might say 
but cannot. No protest shall avail. Let all be known 
in this: that that master bade that servant "break 
the Parliament" and "find some pretence for set- 
ting up sword-law!" 

The Queen bids the vilifier retire ! 

Charles quietly but weakly reasserts ignorance 
of anything "Vane dared do," and with the same 
breath repudiates him as a rash fool. Charles 
knows "nothing of Vane!" 

Well, Hollis believes. Only, let faith requite 
faith. Let this, too, be believed — this that . . . 
but the plea falters at a stony stare from all 
around. Only the Countess looks approval. So, 
turning about and addressing her alone as not 



lU STORIES FROM BROWNING 

wholly heartless, he speaks a last solemn warn- 
ing:— 

The question, trust me, takes 
Another shape, to-day : not, if the King 
Or England shall succumb, — but, who shall pay 
The forfeit, Strafford or his master. 

Then, facing Charles: — 

Sir, 
You loved me once; think on my warning now! 

For a moment old affection and the nobler na- 
ture sway the wavering soul of the King; but not 
unmixed with fear at HoUis's warning and under 
stress of shame and pique at Vane's betrayal. 
"Carlisle! That paper!" he calls suddenly; and, 
snatching it from her, he signs it, despite the 
Queen's warning and Vane's mute effort to inter- 
pose. It is an order to the Earl of Strafford to 
command Percy Lord Northumberland, Lady 
Carlisle's brother, to "bring the army up," when 
"Strafford shall head it and take full revenge." 
Lady Carlisle is to seek Strafford in the Parliament 
and deliver him the commission before he rises 
to defend himself. 

The Queen sneers exaggerated surprise that Hollis 
should have worked so miraculous a change upon 
the lately reluctant King. 

But Charles, unheeding save in a growing im- 
patience of manner, renews his directions to Lady 
Carlisle. Her brother is to bring the army up and 
fall on the Parliament. Hollis shall then learn the 
desert of insolence! The scheme is all the King's; 
let Strafford be so instructed; also that the King 



STRAFFORD 125 

cursed "Vane's folly" in her hearing. "If the Earl 
does rise to do "them "shame, the fault shall lie 
with" Lady Carlisle. — Hollis's invective has stung 
to the quick. Charles cannot risk exposure as a heart- 
less trickster conniving at the villainy of Vane. 

The Countess willingly undertakes the mission, 
yet indulges a flickering hope of persuading Charles 
to "tear down the veil," abjure secrecy, step out 
into the open, and save the accused. 

The Queen bids her make haste and go. 

The Countess's heart bounds at the thought of 
meeting Strafford again. She shall see and speak to 
him. But, if she is to do her work well, her heart 
must be still. Shall she tell the truth and expose 
all in their true rottenness? "What's gained by 
falsehood? There they stand whose trade it is, 
whose life it is." She is not one of them — and 
will not be. "Strafford shall know, thoroughly 
know them!" Her reverie is rudely broken by 
the Queen's sibilant adjuration to the King. She 
will not suffer that infidelity ! But the Countess's 
composiu'e remains unruffled under the Queen's 
direct sneer: Carlisle seems inclined, "alone of all 
the Court, to serve poor Strafford : this bold plan " 
of hers "merits much praise, and yet" . . . 

Lady Carlisle would be about her errand. 
"Time presses, madam," she urges. 

"Yet," resumes the Queen, "may it not be some- 
thing premature? Strafford defends himself to-day 
— reserves some wondrous effort, one may well 
suppose!" 

"Ay, Hollis hints as much." 

But Charles is only nettled by the specious argu- 



126 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

ment and the delay it occasions. "Why linger 
then?" The Countess must make "haste with 
the scheme" — the King's own scheme. The King 
himself shall be there in the Hall to watch Straf- 
ford's look. 

The Queen brushes the Countess aside to retire 
in high indignation; and the Cabal retire with her. 

Charles has one word more for his eager mes- 
senger. She is to say that "Vane is hardly ever at 
Whitehall"; and "remember," adds the King, 
"I shall be there!" 

She will be faithful. 

And he, when he returns, will await her in the 
presence-chamber. 

Together they reach the door, and the King steps 
aside to let her pass. She drops a curtsy and awaits 
His Majesty, saying, "Sir, I follow you." 

Tarrying a moment, she ponders the exact course 
she will take. Shall she "prove the King faithless "? 
It is a great temptation. Yet, so, "all Strafford 
cares to live for" will be forfeited. No, she will 
renounce self. The "King's scheme" and Straf- 
ford's own good shall prevail. She can save Straf- 
ford, yes, has saved him. Yet why this uneasiness 
that fills her heart.? Because her "poor name " will 
scarcely cross his mind. Away with the thought of 
selfish advantage! How little she is worthy of him! 

IX 

The trial of the Earl of Strafford has reached its 
climax in Westminster Hall, and to learn of its 
progress many curious spectators have assembled 



STRAFFORD 127 

in a passage adjoining the audience chamber. They 
have divided themselves into gossiping groups, 
and a number of officers have been distributed 
among them to preserve order. The crowd is the 
largest of the many that have assembled during the 
long days of the trial, and those in the passage 
are straining eye and ear to catch knowledge of 
the proceedings. 

Their curiosity singles out the Earl amid his 
stern accusers. That is Pym plainly in view. Yes, 
Pym is now speaking — speaking, it seems, with 
prophetic fire and pointing with his arm as with 
"a prophet's rod." Beside him is Hampden, who, 
next to Pym, is the most celebrated of the accus- 
ing side. The Earl himself is within view, and it 
is to reply to the Earl's rejoinder that Pym now 
holds the floor. There has been "some pretty 
speaking," and it is expected there will be more 
in the Earl's rebuttal. And it is whispered that the 
Earl's eloquence is a thing to be reckoned with, 
forceful enough to turn the tide in his favor. It 
needs, says one spectator, but " a foolish word or two 
about his children," and men will see in him "not 
England's foe" but the man who, weakened with 
disease and blinded by flattery, has been made 
the unwilling butt and tool of deception and in- 
trigue. 

The attention of the curious is caught by a flut- 
ter in the curtains that screen the King's gallery, 
and the momentary appearance there of a hand. 
It is the King's. What can Pym be saying to pro- 
voke the unusual spectacle .^^ "Nor is this way a 
novel way of blood." The words come clear and 



128 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

sharp in a voice of electric power, calling for a sus- 
pension of the trial by the Commons before the 
House of Lords and moving, instead, a Bill of At- 
tainder to be passed in each house and to be rati- 
fied finally by the King. No wonder, then, at the 
King's agitation; here is a new trial put upon his 
courage. This is the supreme moment to break 
down that barrier and screen, as before coming 
hither from Whitehall he had declared to Hollis 
he would do, and to rise in Strafford's defense and 
vindication. What a world of significance in that 
momentary flutter behind the royal curtains, could 
the curious have guessed it! What depths of the 
royal hesitation, weakness, and temporizing, for 
the merciless eye of Hollis! 

But the incident has a more startling accompani- 
ment, yet one in no way connected with it. Ac- 
cuser and accused turn; and as they face each other^ 
the speaker, Pym, is electrified by a light in Straf- 
ford's eyes, and is paralyzed into immobility and 
silence by an overpowering memory. All bend for- 
ward to lose no movement in the drama, and from 
here and there among the groups of craning necks 
come exclamations of astonishment: There! 

What ails him? No — he rallies, see — goes on. 
And Strafford smiles. Strange! 

Their eager interest is intensified by the sudden 
entrance of an officer who calls for "Haselrig!" 
The officer is plied with numerous questions about 
the issue of the debate, and ruefully informs the 
questioners that the case is "utterly lost "; and lost, 
too, just at the moment when every one 



STRAFFORD 129 

looked for Pym 
To make a stand against the ill effects 
Of the Earl's speech. 

But Pym has a message for Haselrig, an important 
witness. "Is Haselrig without?" 

Opinion among the spiectators is divided. Some 
venture that the Earl will yet be found too much 
for his foes; while others scout the idea, placing 
implicit trust in the efficacy of "these notes of 
Vane's" — the notes that seek to establish Straf- 
ford's design of coercing the Parhament with the 
army. 

The crowd is commanded to "stand back" and 
make a passage. As they do so, they see the Earl 
approaching, and believe that the court is breaking 
up. His brother Hollis, too, is coming by his side 
and speaking as if deprecating "some fierce act in 
Strafford's mind just now." Again the curious are 
pushed back, and again they press forward to 
catch a closer view of "the veiled woman" who has 
joined the pair and is engrossed in earnest conver- 
sation with the Earl. A hush falls upon the throng 
as they press back to make way for Strafford emerg- 
ing from the Hall, accompanied by Slingsby and 
other Secretaries, Hollis, Lady Carlisle, Maxwell 
the Usher of the Black Rod, Balfour the Consta- 
ble of the Tower, and their attendants. 

The party are in search of a place for private 
conference, and to that end the spectators have 
been directed to retire to the background. A table 
is placed in the passage; and papers, with other 
records of the trial, are arranged for use. The party 
gather around it as Strafford adverts with new 



130 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

lightness of heart to the first budding of April, the 
"blossom-month," and the whiffs of fragrance 
that are blown in about the laden table, which has 
been so placed as best to catch the invigorating 
air. 

The Earl turns first to Slingsby, his Secretary, 
with a note of satisfaction in his voice that "Pym 
can quail " under a steady eye. Then, impatient to 
end the business, he calls for the charges to be 
answered. Then, despite the grave remonstrances 
of Lady Carlisle, he rejects the King's offer without 
so much as looking into it. It is "too late" now to 
consider outside help. For eighteen sick and weary 
days it has been "something" to stand 

Fighting for life and fame against a pack 
Of very curs, that He through thick and thin. 

He will fight the fight through to the end. He can- 
not now listen to the Countess's message. 

Again Lady Carlisle would move him to glance 
at the King's paper, but fails. 

Messengers come and go from Lane and other 
of Strafford's counsel within the Hall, and rouse 
him to work with renewed energy. In the activity 
of the opposition, he sees a fresh danger. Ah, he 
will beat them all, and HoUis as well, in spite 
of their tricks, in spite of Pym — the Pym who 
cowers under an honest eye. Clearly Pym is no 
man to stand up in Eliot's shoes, who "would have 
contrived otherwise." A messenger from Lane is 
sent back with a memorandum containing all that 
Strafford "can call to mind about the matter" in 
question, important though it be. Hold ! One word 



STRAFFORD 131 

more. Let the messenger wait a moment and tell 
Lane also that Radcliffe, being the only witness 
who can contradict Pym on the point in hand, 
has been thrown into prison — a crafty way of de- 
priving the defense of their principal witness. But 
what matter.f^ The trick will be baffled, and the 
victory will be the greater. 

The messenger dismissed, Strafford implores 
Lady Carlisle not to look so grieved. The King's 
help is not needed. Did not Pym quail, and did not 
that betray Pym's weakness .^^ Strafford shall be 
acquitted. And then.^^ Then Strafford shall "tran- 
quilly resume" his task, — the task of impeaching 
"Pym and his fellows," "as though nothing had 
intervened since" he "proposed to call that traitor 
to account." 

Hollis interjects a question. Why did not Straf- 
ford protest against the trial long ago.? "Why feel 
indignant now"? Why stand this long time "en- 
during patiently"? 

Why? Strafford cannot tell Hollis why, nor Pym 
through Hollis. Such confidence can be entrusted 
only to the "slight graceful girl, tall for a flowering 
lily." He was "fool enough to see the will of Eng- 
land in Pym's will," and in the fear of having 
wronged England, fool enough to stand trial and 
await England's judgment. But behold the rueful 
disappointment ! 

A messenger who stoops to whisper a question 
from Lane is directed to reply that Lane is to 
answer no such matter. Strafford will see the trial 
through to the end. His purpose is as firm as ever 
to try his actions by the standard set by his foes. 



132 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

not by his own — "Their law allowed that levy." 
As for the rest, that lies between Strafford and 
his God; what business can it be of Pym's or 
Lane's? 

Lady Carlisle, thus encouraged, prays the Earl 
feelingly to "secure this chance." "The King is so 
weak," and it may never present itself again. 
Besides, the trial has its grave danger in the notes 
furnished Pym by Vane. 

Ah, the notes! Lucky reminder! What a splen- 
did point for closing the trial "worthily"! 

Strafford has been making a brief of his argu- 
ment at the table; and, as he finishes writing, he 
rises, talking. He "feared some spice of nobleness 
might linger yet and spoil the character of all the 
past." But Vane, with his despicable "notes," has 
come opportunely. The case of the accusers clearly 
proves too much; it defeats its own ends. The vil- 
lainy which is Vane's and theirs must drag them to 
perdition. He will return to the Hall at once and 
"say as much to Pym" and to that England which 
Pym affects to represent. Let all follow. He has 
"a word to say." 

Yet wait! Nothing shall be done in pride. No, 
he will not "insist upon the little pride of doing all " 
himseM and sparing his King the "pain" of inter- 
cession. Let Lucy apprise the King that the triumph 
is his; that "when Pym grew pale, and trembled, 
and sank down, one image was" in Strafford's eye, 
— the image of his King, — and it was the force 
of that which conquered. Let Lucy put aside the 
past, which has grown " so indistinct, so obscure"; 
there is "nothing to forgive in it." 



STRAFFORD 133 

From this day begins 
A new life, founded on a new belief 
In Charles. 

"In Charles? Rather believe in Pym!" The 
words are reminiscent of Hollis's scornful inter- 
view with the monarch and the circle of intriguing 
advisers; and, as Hollis speaks them, Pym passes 
the group on his own tragic errand. 

The advice is rejected with quiet but conclusive 
emphasis. Strafford has abjured speech with Pym 
forever. He ** would not look upon Pym's face again. " 

Confident of victory, the Earl returns with his 
friends to his defense in the Hall. The light that 
shines from his worn face is its own answer to Lady 
Carlisle, in whose eyes admiration and disappoint- 
ment struggle for the mastery. She stays him for a 
moment, her hand outstretched for a guarded fare- 
well. After parting, she would cherish the thought 
of having pressed his own. 

But the Court has adjourned, and the trial will 
not be resumed until the day following. As, ac- 
cordingly, Strafford and his circle retire from the 
passage adjoining the Hall, there emerge into it the 
court functionaries, with Pym, the Solicitor-Gen- 
eral St. John, Fiennes, Rudyard, and others of that 
party, preceded by Hampden and Vane. 

A division of opinion has separated Pym from 
his followers. Pym's moving the Bill of Attainder 
has chilled the feelings of all save the judicial 
Hampden. Vane is especially fearful. It was Vane's 
connivance with the Cabal, through Sir Henry Vane 
his father, that brought to light the "notes" which 
the prosecution deem so important and incriminat- 



134 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

ing. Pity, awakened by Strafford's heroic patience, 
has taken the place of accusation; and with pity 
has come not only sympathy but admiration. 

Vane, who at the first was violent in Strafford's 
denunciation, calls upon Hampden to save the 
*' great misguided man" and "plead Strafford's 
cause with Pym" — Strafford, the man with the 
superhuman endurance and the "kind calm eyes." 
And Rudyard, who in the early meetings of the 
League, was among the hottest to demand Straf- 
ford's blood, now shrinks in horror from the doom 
which Pym's Bill invokes upon the "drowning 
man." Fiennes is of the same opinion, characteriz- 
ing "this new course " as "monstrous " and inviting 
other Presbyterians less prominent in the League 
to join the side of moderation and mercy. Indeed, 
he bids Vane "take heart," on the assurance that 
this Bill of his Attainder "shall not have one true 
man's hand to it." 

Turning from Hampden, Vane pleads with Pym. 
What, after all, is Pym's Bill.? Simply this: a 
subterfuge to bring about Strafford's ruin in the 
absence of any direct and legitimate legal means 
of prosecution. "The task of fixing any single 
charge on Strafford" has fallen through and failed. 
All regular ways have been tried and exhausted. 
The law has no "hold of him on any charge," and 
because of that the Parliament must be called 
upon to make a law. And a law based upon what? 

Upon the abortive mass 
Of half-borne-out assertions, dubious hints 
Hereafter to be cleared, distortions — ay. 
And wild inventions. 



STRAFFORD 135 

In the depths of his remorse Vane implores Pym 
to have pity — pity in virtue of their friendship 
— and prevent the memory of having murdered 
Strafford with those tell-tale notes. 

Pym solemnly absolves Vane and bids him have 
no care for aught that he has done. But this only 
impels Vane to renew the appeal with Hampden : 

Plead for us ! 
When Strafford spoke, your eyes were thick with tears! 

But Hampden is unmoved : — 

England speaks louder : who are we, to play 
The generous pardoner at her expense. 
Magnanimously waive advantages. 
And, if he conquer us, applaud his skill? 

Again importuned on the score of old friendship 
with Strafford, Pym again rejects the plea; and, 
when upbraided that England who trusts him im- 
plicitly will not be well served otherwise, Hampden 
breaks the blow with an imprecation upon that man 
"who turns the opportunity of serving her ... to his 
own mean account" and would thus "look nobly 
frank at her expense ! " 

Fiennes deplores the depth to which this day they 
have descended. 

But Pym, in defense, asserts his long and deep 
study of the situation. The action he has taken he 
was moved to by his responsible headship in the 
opposition to the traitor, and his conviction that 
the man must be destroyed. He himself has long 
lived with the idea, whereas Fiennes and his like 
have "taken up "the thought only "to play with," 
and "for a gentle stimulant," and 



136 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

To give a dignity to idler life 

By the dim prospect of emprise to come. 

But ever with the softening, sure belief, 

That all would end some strange way right at last. 

Being mere dilettantes in the business of state- 
craft, little wonder that they shrink when the criti- 
cal moment presents itself. 

Fiennes deplores the trifling character of the 
charge against the Earl. 

"Petty charges ?^' A flush suffuses Pym's face. 
Can one "come to the real charge at all".? Picture 
the apostate "safe in tyranny's stronghold." True, 
"apostasy is not a crime, treachery not a crime" 
by legal specification; yet "the cheek burns, the 
blood tingles, when you speak the words," and oc- 
casion must be made to serve in taking "revenge." 
The sins are there with all their mockery, and to 
tolerate them would be to pay all too dearly for 
them. 

Rudyard objects to the course proposed as "un- 
exampled" and to the Bill as having no precedent. 

Still unshaken, and rather fixed the firmer in his 
position, Pym denies the sanctity of "precedent and 
custom" in the presence of each man's God-given 
conscience, "the great beacon-light God sets in 
all" for the judgment of right and wrong. Let 
"each man lay his hand upon his breast, and 
judge"! 

Vane will have no part in this horror of Straf- 
ford's death. 

Rudyard and others chorus their intercession. 
Will not Pym forgive, just at the time, too, when 
Strafford, realizing the King's treachery, would 



STRAFFORD 1S7 

come back to the League? Pym must bear the par- 
don from the Commons. Nothing could be more 
appropriate ! 

"Meet him?" Meet Strafford again? Very well, 
Pym will meet him on the morrow to discuss with 
Lane the "points of law" involved; and then, the 
next day, Haselrig will "introduce the Bill of At- 
tainder." For a moment the man's iron resolution 
seems to bend at the recollection of Strafford's 
pallid look at the trial and the vision of their old 
friendship. His stern features soften with an ex- 
pression of sadness, and his voice betrays a touch 
of tenderness as he bids all pray for him. 



At Whitehall, meanwhile, the King is torn with 
conflicting emotions: admiration for Strafford's 
irresistible defense; gratitude for the magnanimity 
which withheld everything that seemed to impli- 
cate the King; remorse for his own shabby treat- 
ment of the Earl; impatience at Lady Carlisle's de- 
lay in returning from Westminster; and fear that 
the accused, in deference to the royal wishes, has 
accepted the offer of intervention with the army. 
"The future must recompense the past" somehow, 
and Strafford be paid for his good offices. His own 
sanction of Lady Carlisle's "mad scheme" to liber- 
ate the Earl was too precipitate and quite un- 
necessary in view of Strafford's undoubted success 
in liberating himself unaided. Will not the Count- 
ess soon return and resolve his fears? Ah, that is 
her step now! 



138 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

What? Not Carlisle, but Pym? What presump- 
tion thus to break in unannounced! 

Pym deprecates the King's show of annoyance. 
It is of Strafford Pym would speak. 

"Of Strafford!" Charles will hear no more of 
Strafford. He has heard too much from Pym on 
that subject. 

Pym but spoke as the advocate of the People. 
Will not the King grant him leave to say a word 
on his own account now.? 

Charles mistakes Pym's insistence for a sign of 
Strafford's victory in the trial, the triumph of 
Strafford's eloquence. "Lord Strafford, sir, has 
spoken for himseff," is his curt reply. 

Yes, Strafford has spoken "sufficiently," and the 
"trial fails." But there is another course open to 
the People, a course quite new; Pym has come to 
apprise the King. 

Yes, Charles is aware of it; and Pym, for the part 
he has taken, shall be well recompensed. 

The schedule of action is here; Pym would have 
the King's judgment from the King's own mouth. 
The plan is this : The trial having failed, Pym has 
drawn up a Bill of Attainder specifying the grounds 
of Strafford's treason. This the Lords and Com- 
mons are expected to pass; and, in the event of their 
doing so, the parchment will require the royal seal 
and signature. But, will the King approve.? If 
so, the measure is guaranteed to secure the vote 
of both Houses within a week. However, should 
the King not approve, the Bill will be "cast aside." 

Charles catches at a straw in the new turn which 
events have taken. If Pym can hinder the "intro- 



STRAFFORD 139 

duction of the Bill," then, by all means, let him pro- 
ceed. Charles has wronged the Earl, his friend. Were 
the Earl not his friend, he might sign the Bill. Be- 
cause Pym hates Strafford is no reason why every 
one else should do so. Yes, Pym need not depre- 
cate the assertion; Pym does hate Strafford. On 
the other hand, Strafford has saved the King, and 
how shameful the recompense — a mere drudge's, 
indeed ! whose sole happiness is in public service. 
Moreover, there are wife and children. For their 
sakes, too, the only course is mercy. 

Pym shows some signs of relenting, but he steels 
his courage with the thought of the cause and the 
good of England. 

The King resumes earnestly: The Bill must be 
prevented. Pym's course hitherto has seemed fair; 
but in the end the responsibility for Strafford's 
death will rest on the royal shoulders alone. This 
must not be. Another way will serve to meet the 
Commons' counsel. Strafford shall be dismissed. 
But the Bill must be estopped. Pym is not worthy 
of it; still, that can be forgotten. Is Pym satisfied .^^ 

For reply Pym invokes the accusing memory of 
Eliot, whose heir and successor in the People's 
cause he is. Nor can he betray the love and trust 
of Hampden, his friend. Besides, is he not striving 
for the best interests of England and of England's 
King? 

iThat King, interrupts Charles, thanks Pym for 
his good wishes and for leaving to "that King his 
servant." 

The sly persuasiveness fails of its intended effect; 
and a shade of desperate weariness steals into the 



140 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

face of the determined Commoner. He must speak 
out his mind without reserve, for he " may not speak 
again." His "spirit yearns for a cool night after 
this weary day." The trial has failed; but this new 
task, which is "more fatal, more august, more full 
of England's utter weal or woe," must succeed, 
and succeed with the aid of the King. Much more 
than Strafford's fate is involved. The matter 
touches vitally the personal safety of the King him- 
self, the King whom Pym would save. "How long 
the Many must endure the One" is the all-impor- 
tant question. Who shall be the sacrifice, the Earl 
or the King.f^ Let the King take warning. Should 
Parliament decree the death-warrant, the safest 
course will be either not to interfere, or, better 
still, to sign the measure. 

The King breaks down in dismay at the alter- 
natives. 

God forsakes me. I am in a net 

And cannot move. Let all be as you say! 

In the struggle between the monarch's worse and 
better natures, self again has triumphed. At this 
crisis Lady Carlisle enters in accordance with her 
appointment, her eyes radiant with the message of 
the Earl's heroism. Yes, Strafford would spare his 
Liege all pain, loves him, and is grateful for the 
royal message. He never dreamed of being for- 
saken "in the evil day." But, disdaining "a course 
that might endanger" the King, or not needing it, 
he returns the scheme of liberation through the army. 
What love! What magnanimity! Is it not so.^* 

Suddenly she sees Pym, who, at the sound of her 



STRAFFORD 141 

approach, had turned aside. Her expectation of 
meeting the King alone, coupled with her generous 
enthusiasm for Strafford's conduct, had kept her 
oblivious to Pym's presence. But now, at sight of 
him, a second thought revives her confidence. 
They have met most luckily. "No fear for Straf- 
ford!" He is safe, since "all that's true and 
brave" on the People's side is with him and will 
help him. His sympathizers are now "stronger 
than ever." — Suddenly she stops. What is this 
she sees.^ A parchment in the King's hands.? 

Charles signs the measure, and Pym quietly nods 
approval, saying: "Sir, much is saved us both." 

A new fire kindles in the Countess's eyes, and 
Charles quails under the searching gaze. Hastily 
Pym takes back the warrant and clutches it to his 
bosom with self -approving unction : 

No recreant yet! 
The great word went from England to my soul. 
And I arose. The end is very near. 

It is with horror that Lady Carlisle sees that all 
so far is lost. Yet it is with equal determination that 
she resolves to stand as Strafford's champion, even 
though she have to stand alone. She will remain 
loyal even at the hazard of death : 

Heaven will make strong 
The hand now as the heart. Then let both die! 



XI 

Hollis has again come to Whitehall to gain audi- 
ence with Charles, and this time to protest against 
a most astounding and horrifying commission. In 



142 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

an anteroom he meets Lady Carlisle, radiant and 
animated over a wonderful scheme; but the details 
of the enterprise, though recited with much artless 
enthusiasm, fall upon listless and despairing ears. 

Meanwhile, at Westminster the Parliament have 
voted the Bill of Attainder; Charles has signed 
the death-warrant; and Strafford now lies impris- 
oned in the Tower. None has told him of the 
King's treachery, and so the hope of pardon from 
that dubious quarter lures and beckons still, shed- 
ding a faint ray of cheer upon the forbidding walls 
around. 

Lady Carlisle's scheme concerns Strafford's 
liberation, and she presses it upon Hollis with all 
the ardor of her hopeful nature and the strength 
of her young love. Hollis listens; but suggests, at 
length, that they go in and lay the plan before the 
King. 

No, she objects, the King "must not hear till it 
succeeds." 

"Succeed.^" The sad deprecation in Holhs's 
voice is unmistakable. "No dream was half so 
vain." She would "rescue Strafford".? But how.? 
By outwitting Pym? Hopeless dream! Pym is 
crafty, and Strafford is doomed. Yet that doom, 
how horrible — the block with all its "hideous 
show" pursuing! And to-day, to-day he is to tell 
Strafford he must die, "all the while he's sure of 
the King's pardon." No, he cannot do it. He will 
not do it, though the King rage and "rend his hair." 
He cannot, will not, see Strafford! 

Lady Carlisle protests, smiling; bids him remem- 
ber that, if her plan succeeds, she renounces all 



STRAFFORD 143 

praise. The credit must be the King's. Strafford 
must be told that it was Charles who "saved him. 
He would hardly value life" unless a gift from 
Charles. But she must go; her "stanch friends" in 
the scheme are waiting. And Hollis must waste no 
time, but go in to Charles. 

Hollis frankly speaks his admiration — speaks 
it with a shade of pity in his tones — for the con- 
stancy, the heroism, of one who, "fragile, alone, 
so young, amid rude mercenaries," devises a plan 
to save her friend. The man has been deserted long 
ago by all except herself. And she would stand alone 
in the face of the death-warrant, the Queen's im- 
patience at the "eternal subject," the Court's dis- 
missal of it, and the Earl's timely withdrawal! 
And in the event of her failure, what reward can 
she have? 

Reward.'^ A sparkle of the eyes sets off the flush 
of her cheeks. Would Hollis imply that she might 
go to France with Strafford .^^ Hollis himself shall 
help with the reward — Hollis, 

Who lived with Strafford even from his youth 
Before he set his heart on state-affairs 
And they bent down that noble brow of his, 

shall reward her with knowledge of Strafford's 
youth, shall help her make Strafford's youth her 
own. She has "learned somewhat of his latter life, 
and all the future" she shall know; but Hollis 
must provide her with the past — when Strafford 
"is saved." 

Hollis : My gentle friend, 

He should know all and love you, but 't is vain! 



144 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

"Love?" repeats Lady Carlisle. No, it is "too 
late now." "Let him love the King!" It is "the 
King's scheme"! Silence is the word. Hollis has 
given his promise, let him remember. They must 
"keep the old delusion up." But there is no time 
to lose. Each of them has work to do. 

Go to the King! I hope — Hollis — I hope! 

Say nothing of my scheme! Hush, while we speak 

Think where he is! Now for my gallant friends! 

"Where he is?" The thought rankles sorely. 
Hollis sees him all too plainly — Strafford, the 
doomed, "pacing the prison-floor, calling wildly 
upon Charles," and "guessing his fate." No! "Let 
the King tell him!" is his muttered exclamation, as 
he follows the Countess out of the room. 



XII 

The Earl of Strafford, imprisoned in the Tower, 
is seated in his cell with his small children, William 
and Anne. Without, the "broad moonlight" 
gleams on the river and bathes the grim structure 
in silver. The soft sound of lapping water and a 
dipping oar is borne in on the air, with the occa- 
sional noise of a coarse song from the street below, 
jeering at the prisoner as renegade and apostate. 

To compose their father to sleep, the children 
carol the soft words of an Italian boat-song; and 
the imaginative pictures that William conjures up 
to suit the words answer to and interpret the sounds 
from the river below. The father, though very tired, 
is too wakeful to sleep — "too tired," as William 
says, "to sleep." The Earl says wearily that he 



STRAFFORD 145 

does sleep; or, if he does not sleep now, he will sleep 
"by and by and all day long in that old quiet 
house" which will be his retreat after his release. 
Meanwhile, they "sleep safe here." 

Why not go back to Ireland .^^ is Anne's wondering 
question. A touch of sadness softens the father's 
slow reply: "Too many dreams" to sleep well in 
Ireland. Then, with forced cheerfulness : 

That song's for Venice, William: 
You know how Venice looks upon the map — 
Isles that the mainland hardly can let go? 

Yes — in answer to the boy's question — he was 
in Venice once. He "was young, then." It was 
long ago. 

And Venice, adds William with feeling, is 

A city with no King; that's why I like 
Even a song that comes from Venice. 

William is checked by his father — a shade of 
rebuke in his voice. 

And the child replies that he knows why. Then, 
seeking sympathy from Anne, he asks, "Do you 
love the King.^" and adds, "But I'll see Venice for 
myself one day." 

"See many lands, boy," his father advises, "Eng- 
land last of all, — that way you'll love her best." 

William is puzzled. "WTiy do men say you 
sought to ruin her, then?" 

The naive question has its unwitting sting. But 
the boy persists with the query, which the Earl play- 
fully evades. He supposes they "must have words 
to say," just as William must have words to sing. 

Anne is ready with the information that the 



146 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

crowd "make songs" as well. "Last night" she 
"heard one, in the street beneath, that called" 
father . . . Oh, such names! 

William calls out manfully: "They soon left off 
when I cried out to them." 

"We shall so soon be out of it," says Strafford; 
it is "not worth while" to take offense; "who 
heeds a foolish song.f^" 

"Why, not the King," is the pouting reply. 

The precocious answer fires the old train of 
thought afresh. To be misunderstood and vilified 
"has been the fate of better" men, muses the Earl 
sadly. Yet why give up. f^ "Wherefore not feel sure 
that Time" will bring just recompense and vindica- 
tion .^^ that the ignoble and distorted conceptions 
of enemies will give place to just appraisement of 
honest endeavor.? 

The Earl's mood of troubled abstraction deep- 
ens, prompting Anne to suggest to William that 
they sing again. "He does not look thus when we 
sing," she whispers. 

But the Earl resumes, in deep soliloquy: 

For Ireland, 
Something is done: too little, but enough 
To show what might have been. 

And William, catching his father's mood, whis- 
pers to his sister, "I have no heart to sing now!" 
How "very sad" their father looks. Oh, the de- 
testable King! How William hates him in spite 
of all his father says! 

The Earl's mind runs irresistibly upon the past, 
and the future which the past has earned. A scrap 



STRAFFORD 147 

of song from the street quickens his thought : What, 
they sing that Strafford has forsaken the People? 
"Nothing more?" Fame comes not to the noisy 
and the importunate. Whose will be the Name she 
will immortalize? Will it be Patriot Pym or Apos- 
tate Strafford? Time will take account of every- 
thing and strike a just balance in the end. 

He pauses, and soon the children try again to 
sing; but again his pained look constrains them, 
and they lapse into silence. Soon the hush is 
broken by the sudden entrance of two figures, the 
one cloaked and muffled to the ears. The other, 
too, is at first unrecognized in the dim light of the 
cell; but after a little the Earl sees that it is HoUis 
and greets him gladly. He is "in good time." But 
who is with him? 

"One that must be present," is the grave answer. 

Ah, he understands. Laud, to be sure! They will 
not let him "see poor Laud alone. How politic!" 
How considerate! They would accustom him "by 
degrees to solitude." Then, affecting a lightness of 
heart that consorts but ill with the scene, he con- 
tinues: Just now, before their entrance, he was 
"solicitous what life to lead" after his release. De- 
barred from every office hereafter by the attainder, 
— "not so much as Constable in the King's serv- 
ice," — will there be "any means to keep one's 
self awake"? After so much "bustle" what would 
Hollis do were he so favored? 

Hollis is shocked at such levity — shocked in 
presence of the horror impending. 

The Earl goes on, lightly. — And then, after 
Pym and he are friends again, Pym and Hollis shall 



148 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

find him "news enough." That will keep him 
awake. And how pleasant it will be to hear it 
"under a quince-tree by a fish-pond side" on his 
estate at Wentworth; and "Garrard must be re- 
engaged " as "newsman." Or, stay ! " a better proj- 
ect " — When all this troublesome business has 
ended, and the Saints, these august dissenters, reign, 
what a lark to venture up to London some day, 
and sautiter unseen through the Town, and notice 
how Pym, the newly-appointed Tribune, likes the 
office and the life at Whitehall; to see how swim- 
mingly the "Senate's work goes"; to "drop quietly 
into a tavern" and overhear some point discussed, 
as "whether Strafford's name were John or James," 
and then hear himself appealed to — himself, in- 
deed ! who shall so nearly have forgotten who or 
what he was ! 

HoUis gravely interrupts, but is checked again. 
He may speak later — not now. Strafford wants 
now only to "hear the sound of" his "own tongue" 
and silence the ghosts in the gloomy old prison. 
Only one more thing of rare, surpassing interest! 
Who, when Strafford thus returns for a holiday 
to London, will have become the King's advisers, 
his Sejanus on the one hand, his Richelieu on the 
other, a "patient pair of traitors," with prosperity, 
and health, and children — happy children .^^ Ah, 
but his own children there, William and Anne: 
does not his William's "cheek grow thin"? 

" 'T is you look thin, father," is the child's quick 
rejoinder. 

The Earl smiles cheerfully: "A scamper o'er the 
breezy wolds sets all to-rights." 



STRAFFORD 149 

Hollis frowns : Strafford surely cannot forget that 
a "prison-roof" is over him and that serious busi- 
ness is in hand? 

At that the prisoner lets fall his mask of levity : 
Why, no, he would not, he does not, forget. Yet he 
would not be the first to touch on that matter. To 
advert to that is left to Hollis; and let Hollis say at 
once that the "King can find no time" to set his 
prisoner free. Is it a "mask at Theobald's " that so 
occupies him.f^ 

Strafford is assured that it is "no such affair" 
that detains the King. 

"True," he returns bitterly. What is the need of 
"so great a matter" to detain the King.^ Is it, 
then, the "Queen's lip may be sore"? Whatever 
it be, presumably it is "well." One must needs 
wait until the King pleases. Yet, one wants the 
air; "it vexes flesh to be pent up so long." 

Hollis prays for speech, uninterrupted and alone. 
It is from the King that he bears a message. 

William and Anne, bidden to go and try over 
their song again, retire. 

The Earl, following the children with a lingering 
gaze, affirms their loyalty "at all events," then, 
turning directly to Hollis, says he knows the gist 
of the message. There is "nothing new" to tell. 
"From the first" he "guessed as much." 

I know, instead of coming here himself. 

Leading me forth in public by the hand. 

The King prefers to leave the door ajar 

As though I were escaping — bids me trudge 

While the mob gapes upon some show prepared , 

On the other side of the river! Give at once 

His order of release! 



150 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Strafford's sudden impatience merges into a 
quieter scorn. He has heard, moreover, that the 
King has made "certain poor manoeuvres " to avoid 
granting the pardon at risk to himself. Instead, he 
must first "prattle" a little to the Lords and Com- 
mons, affirm his grief that Strafford "should 
abuse" a misplaced confidence; absolve them from 
any blame, and . . . White anger and withering 
scorn make pale the Earl's thin cheeks. "Where's 
the order .^" is his hot demand. 

"Spare me!" pleads Hollis. 

A gentler mood succeeds to Strafford's fury: 
Would the King have him "steal away" like any 
criminal .f^ Would the King have him sneak off 
" with an old doublet and a steeple hat likePrynne's" 
— like any common defamer of the King's person, 
that is.^ Would the King have him "smuggled" 
like any outlaw "into France, perhaps"? For his 
children's sake, no ! — many times no ! 

A shade of wistfulness softens the Earl's fierce 
anger. He hurries on. It was for them (pointing 
to the next room), his children, that he "first con- 
sented to stand day by day" before the Commons 
and give their "Puritans the best of words," re- 
turning soft answers to stinging insults; spoke 
when called upon, observed "their rules," forbear- 
ing the sore temptation of promptly returning 
them their lie. Another wistful look in the direc- 
tion of the next room : 

What's in that boy of mine that he should prove 
Son to a prison-breaker? I shall stay 
And he'll stay with me. Charles should know as much. 
He too has children ! 



STRAFFORD 151 

He turns in his grief to the muffled figure in the 
shadow of the room, who, though he has drawn up 
his cloak to his eyes, Strafford yet suspects to be 
one of the officials of the trial. There is something 
familiar about the form; he has seen it before. 
Even so, the stranger has his pardon, nay, his 
thanks for coming; "for there is one who comes 
not," he adds, thinking of the King. 

Whom, as you are about to die, forgive! — Hollis 
has at last delivered the message. 

But Strafford does not discern the warning, and 
replies only with the light generalization that, 
indeed, "all die, and all need forgiveness." He does 
indeed forgive him from the bottom of his soul. 

Hollis marvels at the man's obtuseness, involun- 
tary or assumed. It is a "world's wonder." But the 
brutal message must come out: "Strafford, you 
must die ! " Hollis breaks down — recoils from the 
tragic force of the words. There is a pause. Then 
Strafford: — 

Sir, if your errand is to set me free 

This heartless jest mars much. Ha! Tears in truth? 

We'll end this! See this paper, warm — feel — warm 

With lying next my heart! Whose hand is there? 

Whose promise? Read, and loud for God to hear! 
"StraJBPord shall take no hurt" — read it, I say! 
*'In person, honor nor estate — " 

Hollis takes the paper, stammering in explana- 
tion: "The King . . ." 

The King.? Strafford "could unking him by a 
breath ! " But he will remain firm and faithful to the 
end. This is not the first time, indeed, that he 
has been sounded on the subject. Just as Loudon 



152 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

did before, so Hollis does now, sitting where he sat, 
prophesying the "certain end" and offering, as the 
only means of escape, the protection of Pym and 
the League if Strafford will "renounce the King." 
No, Strafford "stood firm" on the King's good 
faith, and so he will stand now. The King who 
lives. . . . 

But here Hollis interposes with, — "to sign the 
warrant for your death." He cannot escape his 
commission; the Earl must be made to understand. 

A wan face and a hollow voice give expression to 
Strafford's despair: 

** Put not your trust 
In princes, neither in the sons of men. 
In whom is no salvation! '* 



Hollis puts his arm about the bent shoulders. 
Let him "trust in God"! For the "scaffold is pre- 
pared"; "they wait for" him; the King "has con- 
sented." Now, "cast the earth behind!" 

At this, the figure in the dark corner flings back 
its cloak; revealing the anguished face of the King. 
He comes forward and kneels before the stricken 
man. 

You would not see me, Strafford, at your foot! 
It was wrung from me! Only, curse me not! 

Hollis adds his plea to the King's : — 

As you hope grace and pardon in your need. 
Be merciful to this most wretched man. 

In the next room William and Anne join their 
voices in the soft notes of the Italian boat-song. 



STRAFFORD 153 

The music soothes the stricken man's hurt and 
gives direction to his scattered thoughts: Ah, the 
children! Yes, the children must be provided for. 
Will the King be good to them? Will the King 
believe in their loyalty — in spite of anything the 
Queen may say? William was to remain a "stran- 
ger" to all rumors; but the King, who is "so ut- 
terly deprived of friends," must acquaint him and 
claim his service. Will not the King "be good to 
him"? 

Strafford's calmness contrasts strangely with the 
perturbation of the King, who, for reply, solemnly 
raises his hand to heaven. 

Strafford interrupts; and the oath and promise 
remain unspoken. Let there be no promises, no 
oaths. To Hollis is committed the charge of the 
children. Hollis must do the best he can. There 
is none else to turn to and trust. " Wandesf ord 's 
dead," Radcliffe is safe, and " Laud's turn" at the 
block " comes next." In the late turmoil there has 
been little time for private affairs, yet the Earl 
trusts any of them, even Pym, with the children 

— " No one could hurt them." Besides, "there's 
an infant" to be provided for; and the King could 
not assume "these tedious cares"! His Majesty 
must pardon a "peevish word" uttered in momen- 
tary f orgetfulness of extenuating circumstances — 
his Majesty's "education, trials, much tempta- 
tion," and all coupled with some natural weakness. 

— The mood is gone, and he blesses his King at 
the last. "You know," he says affectionately, 
"all's between you and me ; what has the world to 
do with it? Farewell." 



154 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Remorse, grief, rage touch Charles's pitying 
heart. Hastening to the door, he calls loudly, 
"Balfour, Balfour!" 

The Constable of the Tower obeys the royal 
summons and enters. He is commanded peremp- 
torily to go to the Parliament and "grant all 
demands." They may sit permanently. More- 
over, they may "keep their money if they will" 
and force him to sue to them for "every coat" he 
wears and "every crust" he eats. AH this they 
may do, but they shall not kill Strafford. The 
King chooses to "pardon Strafford," and the 
Queen shall do the same. 

Meanwhile, the walls without are assailed by the 
mob howling "for blood," and the King's voice 
sinks to a low whisper. Balfour entreats him to 
step back from the open door and retire from 
danger. The King places all the troops at the Con- 
stable's disposal; but that officer shakes his head 
doubtfully. "There are some hundred thousand 
of the crowd," he says. 

Charles takes Strafford by the arm and bids 
him have courage. Together they will face the 
multitude. 

But the Earl stands immovable with a new light 
in his face: Balfour must betray "nothing to the 
world of this. " By a " dying man " he is charged to 
forget that he "gazed upon this agony of one" who 
would pardon but was powerless to do so. Yet he 
may say that the "King was sorry" and "even 
wept," and that Strafford "walked the lighter to. 
the block because of it. " 

The King makes an appealing gesture. 



STRAFFORD 155 

Strafford protests that he shall indeed walk 
lightly. 

Earth fades, heaven breaks on me; I shall stand next 
Before God's throne: the moment 's close at hand 
When man the first, last time, has leave to lay 
His whole heart bare before its Maker, leave 
To clear up the long error of a life 
And choose one happiness for evermore. 

He will go, praying for Charles. "Be saved through 
me!" His death? No one could prevent it; let the 
world know that no one could prevent it. 

The King, paralyzed by irresolution and pity, 
stands gazing into vacancy. 

Strafford continues: "Lead on!" — ^to the scaf- 
fold. Let them do it now, and do it quickly. Is the 
crowd impatient? It is because "they'll be kept 
too late for sermon at St. Antholin's." Now is 
the time to go. "Tread softly — children are at 
play in the. next room. " 

With a courtly bow he motions the rest to pre- 
cede; he will follow. 

The door swings open, and admits — Lady 
Carlisle, with many attendants. True to her word, 
she has come to effect a rescue with a convoy of men 
under the command of Billingsley. A boat lies in 
readiness on the river below, to carry them hence. 
Billingsley follows the Countess, and his men light 
up the room with many torches. "Follow" was 
Strafford's last word, and the Countess seizes upon 
it as she approaches the Earl with a supplicating 
gesture and the soft entreaty, "Follow me, Straf- 
ford, and be saved!" 

The light of the torches falls upon the rigid fig- 



156 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

ure of the Eling, his disguise cast aside, revealing 
his kingly state; and she turns to him with the 
hurried word that the "convoy are ranged with- 
out," just as he had ordered. She means to trick 
Strafford into believing that the rescue is the King's 
doing, not hers; but seeing the King's state, she 
drops the ruse and turns to Strafford with a frank 
avowal of her own responsibility. Since the King 
is there in state, Strafford cannot help but know all. 
She thought it would look best for the King to 
make the rescue, it would seem a shame for Straf- 
ford to owe her anything. But now, since all is 
known, why must her part appear a shame? Surely 
Strafford will not "feel shame at being saved" by 
her.f^ 

But Strafford, bewildered by the quick turn of 
affairs, stands stricken — dumb. 

Hollis would rouse him, reassure him: Yes, it 
is "all her deed! this lady's deed!" Then he in- 
quires hurriedly, and with the eagerness of an ac- 
complice, if the boat is "in readiness" below? Is 
this man who has just entered, Billingsley, in com- 
mand of the convoy? He turns to the Earl: 

Speak to her, Strafford! 
See how she trembles, waiting for your voice! 
The world 's to leam its bravest story yet. 

The Countess is all impatience for the departure. 
There will be time enough to "talk afterward" 
during the "long nights in France"; to talk of 
home, sitting " beneath the vines " there. 

At last the Earl finds voice for words whose 
wonderment has a double edge: 



STRAFFORD 157 

You love me, child? Ah, Strafford can be loved 
As well as Vane! I could escape, then? 

Lady Carlisle interrupts all possible endear- 
ments. "Haste! Advance the torches, Bryan ! " 

But the escape is humiliating, abhorrent to Straf- 
ford's proud nature, and out of harmony with his 
course hitherto. England's foe shall be worthy of 
England, and no craven. He "will die." Having 
fought England "to the utterance" and having 
fallen, he will die for England. Moreover, there are 
the "lookers-on, " the invisible witnesses. "Eliot, " 
noble old patriot, "is all about this place, with his 
most uncomplaining brow. " 

"Strafford!" cries the Countess in a tone that 
conveys a world of hurt affection. 

His reply is calm but firm. If his friend "could 
know how much" he loves her, she would be re- 
paid. 

She renews the plea for her own sake, then; for 
the sake of the love he bears her. 

A smile, tender but resolute, interprets his mean- 
ing: It is even for her "sweet sake" that he 
stays. 

Hollis interjects, with a wave of the hand which 
indicates the whole circle of Strafford's accusers: 
It is "for their sake," rather! 

But Strafford is buoyed by the thought of his 
children in the next room. Could he escape like 
a felon and "bequeath a stain ".f^ Away with the 
thought! No, they must leave him. But it is with 
compassion that he asks of the Countess: "Girl, 
humor me and let me die!" 

The Countess in despair importunes the tranced 



158 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

figure of the King: "Bid him escape — wake, King! 
Bid him escape!" 

And looking on the mute misery of his Sov- 
ereign, Strafford replies quietly, with a new and 
firm resolve. 

True, I will go! Die and forsake the King? 
I'll not draw back from the last service. 

"Strafford!" exclaims the Countess in a voice 
of unbounded love. 

The tone, the look have shaken an iron will to 
the core. "After all, what is disgrace" to him? Let 
them be going. Pity "that it should end this way " ! 
Let them lead on. He feels "strangely. It was not 
to end this way." 

Physical weakness ensues to the conflict within 
him, and he totters. The Countess is by his side 
and bids him lean on her. He leans heavily, and 
HoUis offers to assist; but she protests; "I can sup- 
port him, Hollis!" 

As Strafford turns to go, his steps are heavy with 
regrets for the King and what might have been: 
"Oh, had he trusted me — his friend of friends!" 
Lady Carlisle leads him to one of the doors; but, as 
they near it he cries out that that is not the way. 
It is a dangerous way, that gate, for he dreamed of 
it. Yes, it is the same, "with something ominous 
and dark, fatal, inevitable." 

He is assured that it is the way of escape; that 
"it opens on the river"; that their "good boat is 
moored below"; their "friends are there." They 
must go that way, " to save the King, to save the 
King!" 



STRAFFORD 159 

Persuaded against his will, he opens the river 
door. In the darkness of the passage, Pym con- 
fronts him, with Hampden, Vane, and others of 
the League. Resignation soon follows the conster- 
nation written on the Earl's features. He falls back, 
and Pym comes forth slowly. A strange gentleness 
softens Pym's voice; a new exaltation shines in his 
look; a new light, but the old affection. 

Has he "done well" in thus frustrating a bold 
escape.^ Let England bring the answer — that 
England for "whose sole sake" he has labored with 
consistent disregard of his own feelings; that Eng- 
land for whom his "youth was made barren" and 
his manhood wasted to sacrifice for her the friend of 
that youth — the friend of that manhood — the 
friend who walked in youth with him and, it may 
be, loved him; the friend whom, for "forsaking 
England's cause," he hunted through all paths 
and "by all means " (trusting that England " would 
sanctify all means) even to the block which waits. " 
And saying this, he feels "no bitterer pang" than 
he felt at the first, when he swore at Greenwich 
that, though Went worth might leave England's 
cause, he would never leave Wentworth so long as 
his head was on. But he does leave Wentworth 
now. In the sight of God, he renders up his charge 
to his country which "imposed it." He has done 
his country's bidding, perhaps poorly and wrongly, 
perhaps "with ill effects," for he is but human and 
weak; still he has done his best, his "human best, " 
without "faltering for a moment." And now "it 
is done. " With this said, he may say too that he 
"never loved but one man" — David loved not 



160 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Jonathan more than he has loved Went worth. 
"Even thus" he loves him now; and for his own 
"chief portion" and reward looks not to this world 
but to that other world "where great hearts led 
astray are turned again. " It may come soon. Yes, 
it certainly will come soon; for now that his mis- 
sion is over, he shall "not live long"; and in that 
other world to which he must soon repair, his great 
reward will be England's good. Yes, he talks of 
that here, as if it were all he hoped for; but in his 
"inmost heart" he hopes once more to walk apart 
with Wentworth, friend of his youth, — Went- 
worth "purged from all error, gloriously renewed"; 
and Eliot, the hero and pattern of their youth, 
shall not blame them. Ah, who shall paint the 
glorious hour? But it is not yet. No, this is not 
their meeting. "Tears increase too hot." And 
there will be no tears then, nor will there be any 
blood. "A thin mist — is it blood. ^^ — enwraps 
the face" that once he loved. No, their meeting 
is not yet. 

Strafford lifts his head to speak. He, too, has 
"loved England"; and, since his love has had such 
recompense, it will be well to meet then, well to die 
now. 

Youth is the only time 
To think and to decide on a great course: 
Manhood with action follows; but 't is dreary 
To have to alter our whole life in age — 
The time past, the strength gone! As well die now. 

It will be time enough then to "be set right — not 
now. . . . Then if there 's any fault, fault too dies, 
smothered up." 



STRAFFORD 161 

Poor gray old little Laud 
May dream his dream out, of a perfect Church, 
In some blind corner, 

and "no one left" to help him. But the King? 
Strafford must entrust "the King now wholly" 
to Pym — there is no one else. Yet what guarantee 
is there of the King's safety then.f^ All is dark and 
uncertain; no Strafford will be there to help a 
forsaken King; a King whose "friends fail — if 
he have any." And then the King is weak, and 
pliant to the will of the Queen, whom he loves; 
and . . . 

With horrified look, his eyes fixed on Charles, 
Strafford recoils as if to escape a ghastly vision. 
His own fate is "nothing — nothing!" But let 
them not touch that "awful head," that Majesty! 
Avert that fate, that end ! 

He covers his face with his hands; and Pym, with 
the old flare of battle on his forehead, looks the 
unalterable determination of an avenging Nemesis: 
If England shall declare to him the sacrifice even 
of the King, it shall be accomplished. 

A flame of denunciation leaps forth in Strafford's 
words: Pym help England.^ Help England in that 
way.f^ Help England in the murder of her King.^ Is 
this what Strafford, doomed to die, must see.f^ 
Curses on the murderer! God plague him, "sati- 
ating hell"! What.? England, the England that 
Pym professes to help, to become through him 
"a green and putrefying charnel"? Will that be 
his bequest to England's children .^^ Yes, let Pym 
bethink himself: some Englishmen, thank Heaven! 
"have children," and so are spared the blight of a 



162 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

"darkened brow, an over-serious look," a prema- 
ture old age. Wherefore that silence? Has he 
nothing to say? What if Strafford curse him, then? 
"send a strong curse forth, clothed from" his 
"heart, lapped round with horror"? — a curse 
that shall become a fury, "fit with her white face 
to walk the world" and scare "kind natures" from 
the dreadful cause that, blind with fanatical hatred, 
can murder a King? a curse that shall sit down 
with each one at table, at the "gathering for 
prayer"? a curse that shall "creep up, and quietly 
follow each one home, you, you, you " — he points 
at Pym, and Vane, and Hampden standing there, — 
"be a nestling care for each to sleep with," which 
he hardly feels gnawing quietly at his heart, "till, 
lo he starts" and "gets off with half a heart eaten 
away"! None shall escape with less! Will Pym 
not "say a word" to him and — to the King? 

The same steady voice gives utterance to the 
same inexorable determination: If England shall 
declare to Pym the sacrifice even of the King, it 
shall be accomplished. 

Strafford falls on his knees before the shaft of 
granite. "Not for England now, not for Heaven" 
does he plead, but, behold! for his own sake, for 
the sake of the old friendship before Greenwich — 
not as Strafford, but as Wentworth. This, then, is 
their meeting, friends at last ! His friend he thanks 
"for the death " ! Strafford loves him well ! 

As if from an embodied retribution comes back 
the unyielding voice of Pym : 

England, — I am thine own! Dost thou exact 
That service? I obey thee to the end. 



STRAFFORD 



163 



To the scaffold that awaits him outside, the Earl 
steps forward with the agonizing thought that the 
King too is doomed. But when will the stroke 
fall ? How long must he live on without his faith- 
ful servant? Who will serve him, Strafford gone ? 
And all his loyal soul cries out : 

O God, I shall die first — I shall die first! 



IN A BALCONY 

Love and Fidelity 



This is the story of a young man and a young 
woman of the court, and their Queen. The young 
man, Norbert, is already accounted a brilliant 
diplomat. The young woman, Constance, is the 
Queen's cousin; Norbert and she are lovers. The 
Queen herself is an unhappy woman well advanced 
in middle life. 

It is evening. Within the palace all is brilliance. 
Without is soft moonlight. The first star trembles 
in the sky. In a balcony are standing Constance 
and Norbert in love's embrace. Sounds of music 
and dancing issue from the hall, where the Queen 
is seated in marble stateliness, presiding over the 
revels. The silver light of the moon lies softly on 
the balcony, the palace, the court: on the foun- 
tain which raises a light mist in the yard; on palm, 
magnolia-bell, and eye-flower; on trees and lovely 
statues standing around, "abrupt, distinct" — 

The Muse forever wedded to her lyre, 
Nymph to her faun, and Silence to her rose. 

The great hall whence issue the sounds of revelry 
holds rich treasures of art that make it a dome of 
magic for all beholders. In them the outside world 
is mirrored. One sees 



IN A BALCONY 165 

The fight of giants or the feast of gods. 
Sages in senate, beauties at the bath, 
Chases and battles, the whole earth's display, 
Landscape and sea-piece, down to flowers and fruit — 

"things painted by a Rubens out of naught," and 
"all better, all more grandiose than the life. " 

The dancing is the sequel to a feast which the 
Queen has ordered in Norbert's sole honor. For 
Norbert is a youth of splendid achievement. With- 
out name and fame, he was admitted to the Queen's 
council-board one short year ago, and within that 
period has set many difficult matters aright. He 
has become minister, and not the least of his serv- 
ices has been the "junction of two crowns" on one 
sole head, the Queen's — a fruition which "her 
house had only dreamed of anciently. " No won- 
der, then, that for Norbert many heads have 
been turned and many hearts broken. And this is 
the hour of his triumph; his "minute's in the 
heaven," his star at its height. Yet the path of 
success has lain through chaos of intrigues, hopes 
and fears, surprises and delays. His reward awaits 
him. He needs but ask it of the Queen on her 
throne in the hall adjoining, and it will be given 
him. So much the Queen has said. 

Constance is the Queen's dependent, having 
been brought to the Court from poverty many 
years before to brighten the Queen's lonely heart, 
to feed her starved soul with love; and Constance 
loves her. She would do nothing to contradict 
that love or to belie its gratitude. She owes the 
Queen "everything — life, fortune," and she must 
be faithful, true, constancy in name and in deed. 



166 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

But in her love for Norbert she strives to be no 
less. 

Norbert, in the balcony, pleads to go to the 
Queen at once for his reward; but Constance can- 
not yield her consent. Instead, she urges her own 
plea — silence yet awhile. It would be folly, ruin, 
to ask the Queen now to sanction their love. But 
he resumes: 

Let it be now. Love! All my soul breaks forth. 
How I do love you ! Give my love its way ! 
A man can have but one life and one death, 
One heaven, one hell. Let me fulfil my fate — 
Grant me my heaven now ! Let me know you mine. 
Prove you mine, write my name upon your brow. 
Hold you and have you, and then die away. 
If God please, with completion in my soul! 

Has she not given him all — "passed into his 
heart and beat its beats " — given all that was of 
her to give away? She loves him so well that all 
her spirit is his and takes sides with him against 
herself — the woman — her selfish self; so well as 
to ask that he think less of the world's approval, 
"the courtly name" that will one day be his, the 
"pride of circumstance," for which she cares so 
little; that is not the way to win the crown of 
crowns, which is love. This premature disclosure 
will lose him both — love and the world. And 

the world may cry, "So much for him — 
The man predestined to the heap of crowns: 
There goes his chance of winning one, at least!" 

Norbert is surprised to find himself charged with 
loving the world first and to the exclusion of every- 
thing else. Yet Constance assures him that such 



IN A BALCONY 167 

is her meaning, pleading that he love her "quite 
as well. " Still he cannot understand. 

Let her, then, convince him in another way. She 
has said that he loves the world, and she will not 
stand in the way of his ambitions. He loves the 
world because he would tell the world his love of 
her by asking her hand in marriage — asking it of 
the Queen. (She gives him a rose to look at, while 
she pleads.) He is at the height of his success — 
the prime favorite of the Queen for a year's splen- 
did achievement. Such "genius, patience, en- 
ergy" is the admiration of all, and rightly. The 
Queen expects to make lavish returns. "Name 
your own reward," she says, expecting to give of 
things that shall count supremely in the affairs of 
the realm and the moulding of his own career. 
Then comes this paltry request, the "very declara- 
tion of which . . . will turn the scale" against him 
and "neutralize" his work — the request for her 
cousin's hand. That cousin's future and his are 
the alternatives. She cannot let him choose to 
ruin his future — to spoil his world. 

But Norbert interposes. Has she not always 
believed the Queen is generous — is just.? he asks, 
putting the rose in his bosom, and clasping Con- 
stance in his arms. 

But she answers lightly with an air of superior 
compassion for such ingenuousness. Thus men 
show how little they know of women's hearts. 
The Queen's generosity and justice are things that 
Norbert has yet to learn to fathom. Constance 
will instruct him. She gives a kiss, lets him hold 
her hands. And why? Would he beheve the kiss 



168 STORIES FROM BROWTSTING 

was given because he has a name at court? And 
the hands for the gift of a jewel in each? Are kisses 
and hands bestowed for such things? Apply the 
case to the Queen. Why did you make common 
cause with her? Only to gain access to a pretty 
cousin? Will the Queen be pleased to discharge 
her gratitude with such a gift? 

Norbert maintains that, nevertheless, it would 
display the Queen's justice to do so. K not gener- 
ous, is she not just at least? 

Yes, replies Constance, the Queen would be 
just, but just in the Queen's own way. Norbert 
has told her that he "served her for herself. " Very 
well, then; and must she find that to serve her was 
to serve himself? By his own showing, the Queen 
is convinced of his ambitions, which must not be 
jeopardized. Her sense of justice would seek to 
express itself in that direction. Besides, her point 
of view is a thing removed, detached, isolated — 
lacking sympathy, reality, humanity. Consider 
the magic dome in which she was born and brought 
up, with all its wealth of artistic beauty and refin- 
ing influences — the splendid pictures on the walls, 
the painted life all round her; a father and mother, 
— no real father and mother, after all; no true 
friends among the crowds who circle her; never a 
true lover among the many who stoop to her hand; 
at last a husband, but he a lie like all the rest: no 
more real life than the pictures Rubens painted; 
all shadows, these, "more grandiose than the life, 
only no life; mere cloth and surface-paint"; so one 
feels while one admires. Real love she has never 
known; how can she know it in others? She will 



IN A BALCONY 169 

prefer her own poor sham presentment of it. How 
else should she feel, having stood thus for "fifty 
years the sole spectator in that gallery"? The 
result will be that Norbert will lose footing, his 
life will slip back, his petition scorned. 

Norbert admits that the Queen lives and moves 
in her own world, and that it could hardly be other- 
wise. As for himself, he is "alive in every nerve 
and every muscle, " and in touch with life at many 
points. Though "she cannot love," the "good of 
life is precious" to her as it is to him. Yet he, on 
his side, disclaims all desire to rule. His "life's 
good " looked at him from Constance's eyes, spoke 
to him in Constance's voice, just "a year ago." 
Constance outweighs all other values — all other 
joys of earth. She is his supreme good. To get 
her there was no other way than to serve the Queen. 
Accordingly, the Queen he served. Not only that, 
but he surpassed all other servants in the service 
he gave. There were no promises, there was no 
understanding; under the circumstances surely the 
reward is for him to name. Well, suppose such a 
thing exceeds the Queen's dreams; the Queen will 
awake to its reality, its justice, its propriety. Does 
she fancy that "men wear out their lives" in 
"chasing such shades" as "love of power, high 
fame, pure loyalty".'^ Very well; he has "a fancy 
too." He worked because he wanted Constance 
with his "soul" — no less. He therefore asks her 
hand. He must lay his suit before the Queen at 
once. 

Constance reproves again, pleading her requital 
of his love "from the very first" and the proof of it 



170 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

in their clandestine meetings — their meetings in 
the balcony now "under death's spread hand" 
when the folk within think them otherwise occu- 
pied: Noxbert with ajffairs of state, and she with 
*' festal robes." Let him think of her devotion and 
the great joy of their secret love — 

And then the sudden sleights, strange secrecies, 
Complots inscrutable, deep telegraphs. 
Long-planned chance-meetings, hazards of a look, — 

and be patient. 

A year of this compression's ecstasy 
All goes for nothing 

if Norbert goes to the Queen, giving this up for 
the "old way, the open way, the world's" way; in 
short, for "his way who beats and his who sells his 
wife." Then, if the Queen grants the suit, the 
gain at best will be that she will rid herself of both 
at once and doom them to the common lot. The 
"world's warrant" binds and hampers before it 
will set free. But nature is nature without the 
world's officious sanction. Must such sanction be? 
Men may believe it, but "no woman's such a fool. " 
Norbert's impatience is stimulated rather than 
checked. He declares his preference for candor 
and truthfulness. It is secrecy that hampers and 
restricts — not the world's knowledge and ap- 
proval. He has done much under the spur of her 
secret love. How much more he will do in the 
broad light of the world's knowledge — not for 
"power's sake" or "fame's sake" but for hers! 

Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be true! 



IN A BALCONY 171 

Love has been the truth of Norbert's life. Time 
shall prove the rest ! 

I choose to wear you stamped all over me. 
Your name upon my forehead and my breast. 
You, from the sword's blade to the ribbon's edge. 
That men may see, all over, you in me — 
That pale loves may die out of their pretence 
In face of mine, shames thrown on love fall off. 
Permit this, Constance ! Love has been so long 
Subdued in me, eating me through and through. 
That now 't is all of me and must have way. 

No, after his long days of work, the "chaos of 
intrigues, . . . surprises and delays," he would 
** liberate to beauty life's great need o' the beauti- 
ful." The time is now, this beautiful evening, 
when all is peace and harmony in the moonlight 
without — in the cloudless sky, in the abandoned 
trees, in "every flower and every weed" of the 
garden, in the statues round about. Here is the 
harmony of perfect candor. 

Let us do so — aspire to live as these 

In harmony with truth, ourselves being true! 

Yet how, without perfect truth before the world, 
can there be truth between man and woman .^ 

A burst of music from the hall announces the 
march-step for the dance. It is a signal for him to 
be up and doing. He will claim her of the Queen, 
now! "the world to witness, wonder and applaud. " 
Their "flower of life breaks open. " There must be 
"no delay." 

Constance objects that to go now will only invite 
ruin for both of them. Norbert does not under- 
stand the Queen. Constance knows her thoroughly 



172 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

— "to the skin and bone. " It will be best to appeal 
to the Queen's generosity, for she can be generous, 
as generous as he. "There lived a lavish soul " once 
in her "pain-twisted," care- wracked frame; but, 
" debarred of healthy food, " that soul has starved. 
She sits detached in her queenhood, shut out from 
life and laughter, sun and youth. So it would be a 
mistake to appeal to her generosity and tenderness; 
for of tenderness none is left to appeal to; and her 
generosity can be reached only through her sense 
of justice. It was so when she took up Constance 
as her kinswoman. Justice was the basis of that 
action; and more was done "on that bare ground 
than other loves would do on greater argument." 
But Constance cannot repay in such cold coin, but 
only in love; she will love her and help her. And 
in love she cannot permit Norbert to exact of the 
Queen mere justice, — that is, a mere "acquit- 
tance of the past," — for "women hate a debt 
as men a gift. " There is a more tactful, a more 
gracious, way to the Queen's starved heart : it is to 
proffer love and to declare that success is its own 
recompense. That would be so, in a sense. "What 
were it else.^" That will "loose her generosity," 
which, then, of itself will offer the desired gift; and 
the suitor then will be in the triumphant position of 

Accepting just, in the poor cousin's hand. 
Her value as the next thing to the Queen's — 
Since none love Queens directly, none dare that. 
And a thing's shadow or a name's mere echo 
Suffices those who miss the name and thing! 

It will be like picking up "just a ribbon she has 
worn" to keep as a token of the Queen's loved self. 



IN A BALCONY 173 

Let Norbert say he would have Constance as such 
a token of the Queen, and the Queen will grant the 
suit with queenly grace, whereas the merest hint 
of exaction, the "least show" of extortion — Nor- 
bert 's deprecating unbelief stops her a moment; 
but she nods emphatically, — 

You'll see! and when you have ruined both of us. 
Dissertate on the Queen's mgratitude! 

Norbert is half persuaded. It is not his way; he 
has "more hope in truth" — in out-and-out truth- 
fulness, in absolute frankness. Yet it "were 
scarcely false" to say he loves the Queen. He will 
go now and press his suit as Constance wishes. 
Will she remain in the balcony till he returns .^ 

Constance is overjoyed at his readiness, pleased 
to think that he will be her "minister" as he has 
been the Queen's. Yes, the plan is a good one; for 
does she not "owe that withered woman every- 
thing — life, fortune," even him.^ Stand on his 
rights.? — why should he? What rights has he but 
hers, when he holds her "rose," her "hands," her 
** heart " ? He has no rights but hers. 

"How you know me ! " says Norbert, as he breaks 
from her embrace. And she stands alone in the 
balcony while the music of the dance comes out to 
her from the brilliant hall within. 



n 

Norbert has hastened in among the dancers and 
pressed forward to the throne. His coming was not 
unexpected, as this was to be the time when he 



174 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

should declare his recompense. He sues as bidden, 
affirming his great love for his Queen and pray- 
ing for Constance's hand as a token, like a ribbon 
the Queen has worn. But the Queen's amazement 
knows no bounds. She rises and leaves the hall to 
quiet her perturbed feelings — going to seek Con- 
stance as one nearest her heart for sympathy and 
guidance. The suit has succeeded only too well ! 

The Queen finds Constance sequestered in the 
balcony, as Norbert had said, and demands hotly, 
**Is it so.^ Is it true or false?" Is it possible that 
Norbert loves her — her very self — the Queen? 

Constance, not guessing the true import of the 
Queen's words, mistaking the cause of her agita- 
tion, replies quietly, "True" — it is true. 

The Queen breathes a prayer of gratitude to 
heaven. Constance cannot understand. And again 
the Queen begs, Is it true, all true, what Norbert 
said? 

"Why should you doubt it?" is Constance's 
unsuspecting rejoinder. 

Still, the Queen cannot realize it. She begs to be 
made to see it. None see themselves as others see 
them. Constance must see for her and give her 
faith. The Queen had despaired of ever being loved, 
had "abjured the hope" of it as truly as the palm 
in the court without has abjured the thought of 
"seeing Egypt from that plot" where it grows. 

Constance begins to see the mistake. A sharp 
exclamation betrays her great wonder and surpriscr 

Yet the Queen, little suspecting the girl's true 
feelings, protests, — 

But it was so, Constance, it was so! 



/ 



IN A BALCONY 175 

Men say, or perhaps only her fancies say, — 

No love for you, too late for love — 
Leave love to girls. Be queen: let Constance love! 

To rule is a queen's part, not to love. Yes, so it 
has been always; and so a face grows old, hair 
grows gray, "poor arms" grow "lean" — but this 
is not the end: love comes at last. 

Constance affects not to understand, hiding her 
concern. 

The happier you are, says the Queen, if you do 
not understand what gray hairs without love may 
mean. Oh, the loneliness of a woman's heart with- 
out love ! For women 

There is no good of life but love — but love! 
What else looks good, is some shade flung from love; 
Love gilds it, gives it worth. 

Let Constance remember that; — and remember, 
too, how well the Queen loves her. 

Constance answers simply, "I love you" — no 
more. She would help, but cannot see her way. 

The Queen goes on. This love at last has come 
through Constance, she does believe; through Con- 
stance whom she took to her heart "to keep it 
warm when the last chance of love seemed dead. " 
Is the Queen very old, after all.^^ No, she will believe 
it true — what Norbert said — "it shall be true!" 

Constance asks to know more, that she may 
judge if it be "true or false." 

Ah, but will not Constance after all find her 
"grown unlovely quite. . . . Men want beauty still. " 

Constance calms her: "And now you feel not 
sure, you say?" 



176 



STORIES FROM BROWNING 



At that the Queen begins to recount how Nor- 
bert came — not unexpectedly, since many men 
have come and gone. Yet what should his com- 
ing matter? He was but "one young man the 
more," and what could he see in a queen's "mar- 
ble stateliness"? Yet how "gracious, youthful, 
like a god" he was, and she, by that contrast "still 
older" than before — 

We two those dear extremes that long to touch. 

Then how hard it was to see him absorbed in state 
affairs in the "old way" and "for the old end — 
interest," his own interest. And the Queen's sad 
way from of old has been to receive homage like 
a "marble statue all the time"; to be praised, 
pointed at, exalted as better than life itself, and 
yet to be left for the first real woman's smile, 
the "first dancer's, gipsy's or street baladine's"! 
Men have been respectful, careful, tactful, cold. 
All have been of a kind. Not one to break from 
the ranks and speak his heart; not one to write 
"a vulgar letter all of love"; not one to catch her 
hand and press it "like a hand." 

There have been moments, if the sentinel 

Lowering his halbert to salute the queen. 

Had flung it brutally and clasped my knees, 

I would have stooped and kissed him with my soul. 

Constance cannot suppress her astonishment 
and dismay: "Who could have comprehended.'^" 

"Why, no one," admits the Queen: not a single 
soul, except Norbert, who has. And yet it may be 
all a mistake. Will not Constance assure her? Will 
she not "tell the truth"? 



IN A BALCONY 177 

Constance waits to tell it. She waits to know 
all. 

The Queen reviews Norbert's great efficiency, 
his splendid achievement within the year. What 
could have been the motive of so wondrous a suc- 
cess.'* Not love of the work itself; "souls need a 
finer aim to light and lure!" He must have "loved 
— loved somebody "; and that some one, the Queen 
truly had believed was Constance. 

Constance exclaims her surprise; not that she 
would hide the truth, but rather because her own 
estimate of the Queen's discernment is shown to be 
false. 

But the Queen mistakes the words — the tone; 
and for answer, gives her reasons: It seemed that 
Constance's face was ever in Norbert's eye; that 
Constance herseK "approved his love" and both 
"were in intelligence"; all signs at meeting in the 
garden and the balcony bore witness. Besides, "it 
seemed so true, so right, so beautiful . . . that all 
this work should have been done by him not for 
the vulgar hope of recompense, but that at last" 
he might "claim his due reward" of his Queen, 
saying, "Give her hand and pay me so. " 

And I (O Constance, you shall love me now!) 
I thought, surmounting all the bitterness, 
— "And he shall have it. I will make her blest. 
My flower of youth, my woman's self that was. 
My happiest woman's self that might have been ! 
These two shall have their joy and leave me here." 

The surprise of this confession is overwhelming. 
Truly Constance has misjudged the Queen's gen- 
erosity. She can only murmur, "Thanks!" 



178 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

The Queen continues, engrossed in her own train 
of thought. The gift was on her lips when Norbert 
"burst in upon" her, and she turned to hear "a 
inere calm statement of his just desire for payment 
of his labor. " But instead there came — blinding, 
deafening, to her eyes and ears — avowal of his 
love for her, his Queen — "from the first step to 
the last " 'twas her love he craved. 

Constance, believing the Queen's headlong de- 
sire has caused her to deceive herself, protests: 

You hardly saw, scarce heard him speak 
Of love: what if you should mistake? 

The Queen rejects the thought. There was no 
mistake, no — and there shall be none! His man- 
ner, his words, attested his meaning. Constance, 
he said, was the Queen's own reflection, was like 
the ribbon the Queen "had worn. 



» 



He kissed my hand, he looked into my eyes. 
And love, love came at end of every phrase. 

"Love is begun . . . the rest is easy." Constance 
must help her. She will rely on Constance to teach 
her how to keep what she has won. Gray hairs do 
not count; her hair was "early gray." Youth will 
return, and joy can make hair brown, cheeks red 
again; nor is all her beauty gone; she is still beau- 
tiful; the men who have painted her have said so 
— the "last French painter did. " But though men 
flatter, Constance will not. Constance must help, 
requiting a long trust and love; and Norbert is not 
your lover after all. Plainly those looks he gave 
you were intended for his Queen; for did he not say 
that Constance was the reflection of the Queen's 



IN A BALCONY 179 

own self? "You have not been mistaking words or 
looks? " Besides, he is "not such a paragon" to 
younger women who may choose among a thou- 
sand lovers. Something in the girl's look wakes 
suspicion in the Queen. 

Speak the truth ! 
You know you never named his name to me: 
You know, I cannot give him up — ah God, 
Not up now, even to you ! 

Constance seeks to calm her. 

But yes, yes, she must admit it — what a con- 
trast does the moon reveal between her face and 
Constance's ! Beauty gone, yet is not her soul there 
still? — her soul, her very self? Is not that worth 
something? It is so with women who love great- 
ness in men, irrespective of their years. 

Young beauties love old poets who can love — 
Why should not he, the poems in my soul. 
The passionate faith, the pride of sacrifice. 
Life-long, death-long? I throw them at his feet. 

See the fountain in the courtyard. Who cares to 
know what shape it has, whether a "Triton's or a 
Nymph's, " when it pours its foam lavishly, making 
"rainbows all around"? The floods of love the 
Queen will pour shall hide herself. "Cannot men 
love love?" Men tell you "that 'tis not beauty 
makes the lasting love," but they like "soul" and 
"phantasy" and "novelty even" and — "they will 
love a queen . . . will not, does not — he?" 

Constance calmly interposes an obstacle — the 
Queen's marriage. Though it be but a "name," 
it is "still a bond." Then there is the great differ- 
ence in rank. How can he of the noble soul aspire 



180 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

to be the Queen's "favorite," with "shame and 
all"? 

The Queen laughs at these difficulties. They are 
nothing and shall have an easy solution and dissi- 
pate as quickly as the mists "before the moon" 
that shines above them. The "enforced calamity 
of youth" shall be retrieved: the hateful marriage 
shall be dissolved. 

Constance, almost fiercely, bids the Queen pause 
and think about what she says. 

A light laugh from the Queen — she is thankful 
for this opportunity to teach the rights of love — 
to display a soul to match that face of Constance's. 
The world has indeed remarked her burdens and 
her patience under them; and the world will now 
count her blameless in taking her own way. Provi- 
dence sets her free. Besides, it is for her subjects' 
own good that she should cut that hateful knot. 
Yes, she will come into her own. The future gives 
her strength. 

Greatly perplexed, Constance can say little. 
She must "consider. It is all too strange. " 

But the Queen is sure that all is as it should be. 
Let Constance follow her example and love a lover. 
Constance is "young, beautiful," and "will have 
many lovers." She should love one with "light 
hair, not hair like Norbert's," to suit hers; love 
him unreservedly and "simply for his very self." 
So she herself loves Norbert. And "He loves me," 
she cries passionately. 

" He shall," is Constance's, laconic reply. 

"Let us have one heart," returns the Queen 
joyously. She will come to Constance often for 



IN A BALCONY 181 

counsel; and in turn will tell her all that Norbert 
says, all that he does. And the Queen and Norbert 
will speak of Constance's lovers, and match her 
love according to her "beauty's worth. " She shall 
choose one, and he shall be procured. For herself, 
her heart has been lightened; now she must go. 
She will pace about the rooms with the crown of 
her new joy, wear it before the world, and then 
be back to tell how well it feels. 

How soon a smile of God can change the world! 
How we are made for happiness — how work 
Grows play, adversity a winning fight ! — 

under the smile of love. The future will recompense 
the dreary past. Many years remain: "God has 
been very good." Constance must wait for her 
return — wait to be told how sweet it is to love — 
as "different from dreams" about it and the 
"mind's cold calm estimate of bliss" as the "stone 
statues" in the courtyard are different from "flesh 
and blood. " And looking up in the moonlight of 
lovers, she exclaims. 

The comfort thou hast caused mankind, God's moon! 

As the Queen leaves, another burst of dance- 
music from the hall strikes the ear of Constance 
left alone in the balcony. 



Ill 

Norbert reappears in the balcony to announce 
the result of his suit to the Queen. True, he has 
received no definite encouragement, the Queen 



182 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

having left the hall before reply. But her Majesty 
may have her answer ready now, and there is little 
time to spare. He has "but one minute and one 
word" to say before he goes back to her. He has 
come to tell Constance, as he had engaged to do. 

Constance, for her part, has decided upon a new 
course, which will yet be the old course — the 
circumstances only being changed. The Queen's 
astounding revelation has amazed and stunned 
her. At first she did not know what to do save in 
some way to maintain her fidelity — her constancy 
to the Queen. This had been her desire from the 
very first; this is her desire now. From the very 
first, too, her resolve was to keep absolute trust 
with Norbert and live up to the high demands of 
her great devotion to him. She loved the Queen, 
she loves her now. Her love for Norbert could not 
permit him at first to imperil his future for her 
sake; but now that she finds herself so completely 
mistaken in judging the Queen's nature — now 
that she finds that Norbert, not she, was right — 
she resolves to accept Norbert's course of perfect 
frankness. She will tell him all, serving the Queen 
in doing so. On the other hand, she will give 
herself to him unreservedly, convinced that the 
gift is his due. She will place the choice of his 
happiness wholly within his power. He must now 
choose between the alternatives which her blunder- 
ing has forced upon him — the world, the material 
fruition of his successes, and the Queen on the 
one side, — and pure love with the renunciation 
of his career, on the other. She, the dependent, is, 
as she feared from the first, pitted against Norbert's 



IN A BALCONY 183 

name and fame. Though the fight prove a losing 
one, she will act the part of constancy to the end. 

"I am yours, Norbert," are her first words at 
his approach. 

"Yes, mine, "says Norbert, not suspecting theii 
new significance. 

She explains that she has not been wholly his 
"till now." She had kept something back. Now 
she gives herself wholly; she is unreservedly his. 

His acceptance is neutralized with a shade of 
perplexity. 

She will reassure him. She is his own, truly. 
Instead of giving herself bit by bit, instead of 
doling herself out "coin after coin," to prolong to 
a distant ending the joy of giving and receiving, 
she chooses "the simpler" way of giving "all at 
once." For good or ill she yields herself wholly, 
letting him decide now how he will use the gift and 
thrive. 

The gift is sealed with a kiss. Norbert clasps her, 
thanking God. 

From this high ground, says Constance, they 
will "look on through years." Happiness so per- 
fect cannot endure forever. They cannot "kiss, 
a second day like this." That would be too good, 
too perfect, for this bad, imperfect world. (Her in- 
most thoughts revert to the danger of their clan- 
destine love — to death's hand which she has 
seen spread over the balcony from the beginning 
— but she hints no more of this to her lover.) 

No, "with this day's heat" they "shall go on 
through years of cold," corrects Norbert, confi- 
dently. 



184 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

She assents; though a melancholy, a vague dread 
of something unforeseen, saddens her look. Nor- 
bert will be quickened and sustained by the "first 
glow" of this day; he will not brood over it in inef- 
fectual sorrow when the glow is gone and love is 
dead. "Yes, love lives best in its effect"; and hers, 
"full in its own life, yearns to live" in his. 

Norbert answers fervently that he will prove 
his devotion day by day through the long years 
ahead, finding this day's love full enough to stock 
each minute of the days to come. 

Constance is eager to know how. 

Does she mean, how he will order his life to 
prove it .^ That is easily told : 

I count life just a stuff 
To try the soul's strength on, educe the man. 
Who keeps one end in view makes all things serve. 
As with the body — he who hurls a lance 
Or heaps up stone on stone, shows strength alike: 
So must I seize and task all means to prove 
And show this soul of mine, you crown as yours. 
And justify us both. 

Constance in rapt admiration of the noble 
beauty of his word and thought, and perhaps 
thinking too of her own dependence and poverty 
and longing that they might both be independent of 
the Queen, wishes that Norbert could "write books, 
paint pictures." Such words and thoughts were 
worth enshrining. To "write or paint" such 
visions would recompense one's poverty; then, one 
could pity the rich. r 

That, says Norbert, would be to take the shadow 
for the reality — to love one's painting or writing, 



IN A BALCONY 185 

and not one's mistress. Life is best; and their own 
life is best for them as it is. Poets and painters Hve 
detached and aloof, in order the better to see their 
subjects. "Let us be the thing they look at." He 
could not bring himself to make her beauty current 
for others even in art. She is his in life. They are 
realities. Let Rubens there — Norbert motions 
toward the splendid pictures in the lighted hall 
within — let Rubens paint them ! 

Constance sees how deeply in love with action 
her lover is. Any other career than that which lies 
in the thick of life would be beyond his sympathies 
and capabilities. But the thought finds utterance 
only in two soft words of sure conviction and self- 
effacing resolution: "So, best!" 

Norbert rejoices in their community of interests 
— in her sympathy " with life, with action, power, 
success. " There is no time to change his occupa- 
tion. Men must be led; they must be inspired. 
The task is for some one "through ways of work 
appointed by the world." The gift of creation is 
not his, but the gift of leadership is; the gift, that 
is, of finding, uniting, and executing the people's 
wills. In that spirit he began at first. In that 
spirit he achieved the year's success, of which to- 
night marks the crown and fruition in the Queen's 
gift of Constance. What if to-night, too, see the 
birth of a new power from the "instincts of the 
heart that teach the head"! What if the people 
see it and follow it to new heights which yet he 
only sees! She gave him the strength with her 
kiss. His hand is "plastic" to mould "this mass 
of men"; she makes his "muscles iron" to guide 



186 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

them. To-night is the crown of the first issue — the 
first triumph; another lies distinct in sight. He 
shall mould their wills as the potter moulds a vase 
" to the curl of the god's lip, " — a vase with fair 
Graces "rounded" on it in a "dance" that men 
shall "recognize with turbulent applause and 
laughs of heart"! 

So triumph ever shall renew itself; 
Ever shall end in efforts higher yet. 
Ever begin ... 

Constance catches fire from his fire — interrupts. 
And shall she help — always? 

For answer he seizes her in his arms, saying, 
"Thus!" 

Thus Constance feels her resolution strength- 
ened. If this night's crown of love will work such 
results for her beloved, his career will be safe — 
even with the Queen. The words struggle to her 
lips; but before they are said, and before she can 
tell him, as she had determined, of the Queen's 
passion, the Queen herself enters in her exulting 
search for Norbert, or perhaps with some new con- 
fidence for Constance's ear. 

IV 

The lovers start at the Queen's sudden appear- 
ance. But Constance's presence of mind is perfect. 
She has done all in her power for their common 
happiness. Now she will take the only course left. 
Since "action, power, success" are Norbert's ideals, 
and are indispensable to his happiness — as she 
has just been apprised — he must fulfill his ideals 



IN A BALCONY 187 

and have his happiness; and she will help him. 
Thus, too, she will be true to the Queen. 

This determination finds no direct utterance, 
but it colors her whispered address to the Queen: 
"Hist, madam! So have I performed my part." 
Then, turning to Norbert with affected coldness, 
she raises her voice for both to hear. "You see 
your gratitude's true decency, Norbert.^" What! 
"a little slow in seeing it!" Then begin to see it 
now, that payment may be the sooner over! Yes, 
they have kissed, as the Queen has seen; but 
"what's a kiss".'^ A mere trifle sometimes; now, 
but the natural sign of a decent gratitude. 

Norbert's voice, surprised, reproachful, ques- 
tioning, falters "Constance.'^" 

But Constance's resolve knows no undoing. She 
will play the part out. Promptly she opens her 
lips with the same coldness. Must she repeat the 
lesson, and must he have a "witness" to his "dul- 
ness".'^ Will he not understand what she has been 
saying "these ten minutes long".? Does he falter 
now at the critical moment .^^ Would he deny the 
role that he the "young handsome man" has 
taken, being "pleased to fall in love with one be- 
yond, so very far beyond him, as he says," and 
"so hopelessly in love that but to speak would 
prove him mad"? Would he renounce his judi- 
cious scheming to make "some insignificant good 
soul," like herseK, "his friend, adviser, confidantr 
and very stalking-horse to cover him in following 
after what he dares not face".? 

With studied impatience added to the pretended 
coldness, Constance continues. Then, when such 



188 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

a gentleman's end is gained, and he finds that she 
whom he "dares not face has loved him first" (here 
she appeals to the Queen for support), and that 
his hope is fulfilled even beyond **his wildest 
dream," and that all wish him well, — especially 
she, the confidant, *' who brought the same 
about, " — at such a moment of supremest joy it 
is the part of the "merest gentleman" not to 
"start rudely from the stalking-horse," the me- 
dium, the instrument, and dismiss her, forget 
her, "show his back unmannerly." Rather is it 
his cue to show "a liberal heart" and acknowl- 
edge that "a tingling time of hope" was theirs in 
common; acknowledge that so the "confidant, the 
Constance, served not ill"; acknowledge that, 
though he will forget the instrument "in due time" 
("as she herself bids " him do) still that instrument 
"has rights, the first thanks go to her, " 

The first good praise goes to the prosperous tool. 
And the first — which is the last — rewarding kiss. 

Norbert cannot take her words seriously. 

"Constance, it is a dream — ah, see, you smile!" 

With renewed fortitude Constance persists. She 
turns resolutely to the Queen. Norbert's task has 
been "properly performed." Now, herself, she 
faces the Queen to finish hers and to "do justice" 
on her side. It is true that Norbert has loved the 
Queen — loved her "long and well." But he 
could not hope to tell her so; and Constance has 
served to prove that the Queen's soul was "accessi- 
ble," leading his thoughts on, drawing them "to 



IN A BALCONY 189 

their place," keeping love "constant toward its 
natural aim." Her duty has been the duty of 
fidelity and constancy. And the Queen now will 
"stoop," meet them "half-way," and spare their 
"fears. " It will be royally done and like the Queen. 
Norbert thanks her, and Constance herself joins 
her thanks with his. She yields him with "full 
heart, " — sincerely and wholly, — her act being 
its own reward. May both be happy, and the 
Queen especially so in the thought that she alone 
on earth can "do all for him"; can do "much more 
than a mere heart which though warm is not" as 
"useful in its warmth as the silk vesture of a queen." 
May the Queen "fold that around him gently, 
tenderly." As "for him, — he knows his own 
part, " and will do it well. 

Norbert, so far as he can understand this calcu- 
lated speech, regards it as a "jest," the result of a 
mad and foolish "wager. " But whether Constance 
made the wager or only accepted it, at least she 
loses by it. 

Sincerity still speaks in Constance's voice and 
manner. Facing the Queen, she renews her plea 
with sustained earnestness: Norbert speaks thus 
from an excess of diffidence; and, turning to him, 
she begs him not to shrink now; for now she yields 
her whole right in him to the Queen. With the 
Queen he shall "go put in practice the great 
schemes" he teems with and "follow the career" 
that otherwise would be closed to him. She only 
can be the inspiration to all his creative powers. 
Again addressing the Queen, Constance implores 
her to say the right word now — to say that she 



190 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

loves him, say it frankly, and break down his fears, 
which are fears, in very fact. Thus only will he be 
convinced. She knows the man, and speaks of him 
truly. 

But the Queen keeps silent, looking gravely at 
Norbert, who, with a note of bitterness in his 
words, says that, for his part, he knows "the 
woman somewhat, " and confesses that he thought 
she would have "jested better." "She begins to 
overcharge her part." He gravely awaits the 
Queen's pleasure. Jesting aside, where is his 
reward? 

The Queen replies with equal seriousness. A 
shade of tolerance for Constance, the "wild girl," 
colors the caressing tones of her voice. Constance's 
"eccentric speech and variable mirth" sound as 
strange to her ear as to Norbert 's. Yet Constance 
"may still be right." She, the Queen, will con- 
firm what still "appears a dream" even to herself; 
yet it "is true." Yes, Norbert's declaration of 
love and devotion a little while ago in the hall was 
no surprise to her, but "justified a warmth felt 
long before." "From the first" she loved him. 
His courage is a help to hers. He did well to speak 
as he did on this night that crowns his twelve- 
month's toil. His avowal, when it came, "stirred 
no novel sense" in her, because she had discerned 
his heart long before he revealed it. His great zeal 
for his work attested it, without the words he 
ventured a moment ago. The night has been 3 
strange one, but has a "happy ending" — in his 
love which hers meets. So let it be ! As he chooses 
her, so she chooses him. 



IN A BALCONY 191 

Norbert finds in the Queen's words the same 
meaning that he saw in Constance's. They have 
joined in subjecting him to a great test. Confi- 
dently, then, he meets the Queen's ardor with an 
equal fervor: The Queen, he says, chooses worthily, 
and he "will not be unworthy" of her "esteem." 
He does love her; he will meet her nature, now that 
he sees it clearly. She is justified in her daring ex- 
periment; though none but a queen had ventured 
to make it. He rejoices in the test before she grants 
to his arms the "dearest," "beauteousest" and 
"best of women. " Again, as in the hall, he pledges 
his "devotion to the uttermost." Yet even she, 
the Queen, cannot create in him the love their 
Constance does. It is not the superb magnolia- 
bell in the courtyard yonder, but the "small eye- 
flower nearer to the ground," that "invites a cer- 
tain insect. " So, turning to Constance, he concludes, 
"I take this lady." 

Constance puts out her arms in wild protest and 
checks his advance, whispering that that would 
be the worst of all mistakes. The test — the 
"trap" — was not the Queen's but hers. And 
aloud, to the Queen, she says, "He is too cunning, 
madam ! " 

"You, was it, Constance.f^" demands Norbert 
sternly. Then, in truth, he finds it difficult to 
pardon; only "the grace of this divinest hour" 
which makes her his can persuade him to forgive. 
The Queen has his devotion; but she knows only 
his brain; and, knowing it, she may "experiment" 
upon his heart — and learn more of that by the 
result. But — and here the old tenderness returns 



192 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

— for Constance who knows him, who "so long" 
has told his "heart-beats over, and held his life" 
in her "white hands" — for Constance "it is not 
well " to be so cruel. 

Constance brushes the plea aside lightly. As she 
has said, even "the heart-beats" and life itself are 
for the Queen's sake. 

Norbert's cheek flushes red at the rebuff. It is 
"enough. " What "test" is this.f^ He had not dared 
to do the like. He could not so have insulted "the 
meanest woman in the world," had that woman 
loved him and proved her love. He could return to 
Constance the soul she offered, and keep his own; 
but, take the quivering soul you offer me, but 
which I cannot use, and "give it to some playful 
friend" for the trifle he will requite me with — 
could I do that? cries Norbert. Could 

I tempt a woman, to amuse a man, 

That two may mock her heart if it succumb? 

No: fearing God and standing 'neath his heaven, 

I would not dare insult a woman so, 

Were she the meanest woman in the world. 

And he, I cared to please, ten emperors ! 

Constance trembles under the terrible blow and 
can find voice for reproach in only one dear word, 
"Norbert!" 

Norbert 's indignation permits no interruption: 

I love once as I live but once. 
What case is this to think or talk about? • 
I love you. Would it mend the case at all 
If such a step as this killed love in me? 
Your part were done: account to God for it! 
But mine — could murdered love get up again. 



IN A BALCONY 193 

And kneel to whom you please to designate. 
And make you mirth? It is too horrible. 
You did not know this, Constance? now you know 
That body and soul have each one life, but one: 
And here's my love, here, living, at your feet. 

Livid anger glows in the face of the Queen; and 
Constance's poor mistaken scheme of constancy 
has broken down again. She flies to Norbert, 
beseeching him to listen to "one more last word," 
protesting that her "jest" was not "earnest." 

Norbert, for his part, can discern no jest. Where 
is the laughter that should go with it.^ And why 
"this horror that grows palpable" in the face of 
the Queen.? 

He turns to address the Queen, who leans upon 
the balcony for support: Has he "done iir'.f^ Has 
he not spoken the truth.? What else could he have 
done.? Was it not the Queen's "test" to try him 
and find what his "love for Constance meant"? 
Her Majesty herself must be the first to approve 
that he "should choose thus"; since thus even a 
beggar who refuses in scorn to sell his child is ap- 
proved for the nobility which speaks through his 
rags. But Norbert stops suddenly, seeing the 
Queen's eyes fixed on Constance with a panther's 
glare, and Constance gazing steadily back at her. 

In that encounter Norbert sees the world crum- 
bling to ruin. Yet Constance remains; and in her 
features he reads the assurance that outweighs 
every other good. She did not, in this night's "wild 
whirl of things, sell " him whose soul was her "soul of 
souls for any price." \Miat could have prompted 
her to this vain act of self-sacrifice.? Was it a "mad 



194 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

trial " to exceed him in love? If so, still, though he 
"might curse, " he loves her. He is love "and can- 
not change: love's self" he casts at her feet! 

The Queen steadies herself and goes slowly out, 
anger and vengeance flaming from her eyes. 

In the possession of each other the lovers re- 
nounce the world. Death's spread hand is closing 
upon them; but having attained what "men have 
died" to get, they fear not the most the Queen 
can do, being "past harm now" and leaning "on 
the breast of God." Constance rejoices to find 
Norbert so far above the ways of men as not to be 
tempted even "with a crown"; but Norbert feels 
that their bliss, being "too perfect," "must end 
here." 

Within the hall the music has ceased at the 
sharp command of the infuriated Queen. To the 
fated balcony there comes the sound of a "meas- 
ured heavy tread. " Doors open, letting out a blaze 
of light. The guard approaches for the arrest; and 
the doomed lovers kiss. 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE 

The Transcending Power of Love 

The season is summer at the point of change to 
autumn. The place is a desolate spot on the coast 
of France, windswept, rocky. There stands a cot- 
tage of four rooms in a field now growing red and 
rough; soon it will yield scarcely a blade for the pil- 
fering rabbit or the magpie. A fig tree furls its 
leaves in the yard amid olives and vines. Beyond 
them lies the sea, stretching in stripes like a snake 
— to the leeward, olive-pale; to the weather side, 
black, spotted white with the wind. Nearby is a 
cliff, where sometimes the wind plays, ailing; and 
round about are rocks, thrust out seaward, like 
huge knees and feet, bones of the brown old earth 

For the ripple to run over in its mirth. 

Within the cottage the hearth is blazing with fire- 
wood, flotsam and jetsam of oak and pine from 
shipwrecks 

Long ago 
Befallen this bitter coast of France; 

and the fire on a stormy night sends a shaft of 
ruddy cheer through the casement of the warm 
house to toiling sailors who. 

Drenched and stark. 
From their bark 



196 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

eye the peaceful glow in envy. Conspicuous among 
the furniture of the room is a drawing board and 
the plaster cast of a perfect hand. 

Such is the setting of the poem; and its mood is 
organically consistent with it, since out of the 
mood and its theme the scenery has, in all likeli- 
hood, been evolved. It is a mood of bleak sadness, 
induced in a married woman, presumably of mid- 
dle age or more, who speaks of herself, though not 
in abandoned self-pity, as faded, with hair grown 
into "coarse hanks" and skin like the "bark of a 
gnarled tree." 



Estrangement has come between James Lee and 
his wife; and but a single day has served to bring it. 
The sky 's deranged. The summer season of their 
love has stopped. This she realizes one day as she 
stands musing by the window. Outside, summer is 
just changing to autumn. The same change, she 
feels, is taking place in her married life, though her 
own heart is true, and hungering for love. 

II 

Again, one day by the fireside aglow with drift- 
wood, the estrangement assails her, and more bit- 
terly than before. With wood from shipwreck their 
fireside is warmed, and the curse of it now strikes 
into their very lives. To sailors eying the case- 
ment from out on the sea, the ruddy glow of the , 
hearth speaks of safety and cheer. God help them 
at their need and spare them this fate, worse 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE 197 

still ! For worse by far is it for some ship to rust and 
rot in port 

All through worms i' the wood which crept. 
Gnawed our hearts out while we slept. 

And ruefully she asks of herself. Have other lovers 
suffered our lot? Who were the former occupants 
of the house? and were they, too, shipwrecked in 
their love? 

Ill 

Another day, and she stands in the doorway, and 
the sinister look of the sea ruffled by the wind fore- 
bodes that 

"Good fortune departs, and disaster's behind." 

Dried and curled are the leaves of the fig tree, 
where lingers no glimpse of summer's golden fruit; 
the vines are withered — how they "writhe in 
rows, each impaled on its stake" ! And her " heart 
shrivels up," her "spirit shrinks." The rough field 
with its scant yield of grass reflects the chill and 
desolation of their love. But why must cold 
spread? Why the spirit change? Why cannot the 
soul inherit its Creator's power and transfuse with 
life the cold of the world? Then not age or winter 
should estrange whom youth and summer brought 
together. 

IV 

Out on the beach goes James Lee's wife to rea- 
son in quiet awhile — to reason the right and the 
wrong. At first they wanted each other's love — 



198 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

so much is true. What has wrought the change? 
She took him to be a whole world to her — but love 
glorifies "what was mere earth before." 

You were just weak earth, I knew: 
With much in you waste, with many a weed. 
And plenty of passions run to seed. 

But a Httle good grain too. 

As such she took him, awaiting the rich harvest of 
the after-years — a harvest which never came. 

What did the failure prove? 
The man was my whole world, all the same, 
With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame. 

And, either or both, to love. 

But her fault, she realizes, is too persistent a pa- 
tience. She waits too well and wearies him. It's 
all grown "an old story" now. Her wisdom is too 
serious, she knows; his way is pleasure. The mar- 
riage bond galls him. Then let her bid him fare- 
well. His fancy may turn to "a laughing eye," — 
content itself with that, — and why should it care 
for more? 

V 

Time passes, and she loiters alone on the cliff. 
The turf she leans against, dead to the roots, a 
rock left dry by the receding tide, become, like all 
else around her, symbols of her lovelorn life. Flat 
lies the rock, like an anvil's face, with no sign of 
weed or shell from the intimate sea. It is ice at the 
core; it lies like "death's altar" on the lonely 
beach. Behold a sudden change! A fairy wand 
touches the turf to life. 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE 199 

On the turf, sprang gay 

With his films of blue. 

No cricket, I'll say, 

But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too. 

The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight. 

Real fairy, with wings all right. 

On the rock, too, falls a transforming light from 
the two red wings of a butterfly 

Like a drop of fire 
From a brandished torch. 



No turf, no rock; in their ugly stead. 
See, wonderful blue and red! 

And she questions, "Is it not so with the minds of 
men?" Love, settling unawares, transfigures all 
things ! 

VI 

James Lee's wife sits under the cliiff, reading from 
a book of poems. The poet's theme is of the ailing 
wind striving to give expression to itself. Is it the 
spirit of some wronged thing that entrusts its 
cause to him? — a tale of 

faith, requited 
With falsehood, — love, at last aware 
Of scorn, — hopes, early blighted? 

Such tone of pathos needs no human tongue. Would 
men "go mad without a moan" if they could un- 
burden themselves in such a sigh? Which, of all 
love's sighs, would this wind's sigh mock? That 
from the starved lips of a nun early bereft of love, 
and now stretched on her pallet of straw, nails 
indenting the clammy palm, the body all mute and 



200 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

shrunken in death? Or is this moaning wind no 
mocker of futile grief, but a would-be comforter? 
So, says the poet, there came, as he was sadly pac- 
ing the sands one morning, a hound that refused 
the food he offered, and, whining up at him, only 
wanted to lick his hand. 

These, she reflects, are a young man's fancies on 
the meaning of disappointment. His path, clearly, 
is untried; his zeal is the learner's. With the confi- 
dence of youth he flings you lessons on the meaning 
of failure and disgrace, his own undoubted triumph 
for eternity seeming so manifest. Can inexperience 
and instinct read the riddle? No; 

for kind 
Calm years, exacting their accompt 
Of pain, mature the mind; 

and some bright morning he will hear the wind 
softly murmuring among the vines, "Here is the 
change beginning," and will know that there is a 
limit to beauty and a limit to bliss — that 

Nothing can be as it has been before — 

better, perhaps, but not the same. 

Why this is the old woe o' the world; 
Tune, to whose rise and fall we live and die. 

And the lesson it speaks is courage, progress, not 
despair : 

Rejoice that man is hurled 
From change to change unceasingly. 
His soul's wings never furled! 

Does the lesson mean probation, too? Who knows? 

God does: endure his act! 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE 201 

Only, for man, nothing endures ; and how bitter it 
is that he cannot have graven on his soul "one 
fair good wise thing just as he grasped it"! To 
himself comes death's wave: but first, alas! time 
washes o'er and sweeps away all that he 'd sink 
to save." 

VII 

So much thought out ! And now this autumn 
morning, here among the rocks, the brown old 
earth wears a new smile of revelation, 

Listening the while, where on the heap of stones 
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. 

Be of good cheer. That is the doctrine of life's trial. 
Love is not for selfish gain, not for clear gain, but 
for development. 

Make the low nature better by your throes! 
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above! 

VIII 

James Lee's wife is seated before the drawing 
board in her workroom, copying from the plaster 
cast of a hand, "live once, dead long ago." It is a 
"perfect thing," this plaster cast. From its delicate 
beauty one could fancy how the artist 

Looked and loved, learned and drew. 
Drew and learned and loved again. 



Till beauty mounted into his brain, 

and on the finger of that faultless hand that all his 
genius could not copy perfectly, he placed a ring — 



202 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

fancy's eye can still discern it on the ringless model 
there. Lifeless fingers, a cold clay cast! She had 
sent away the little peasant girl with the poor 
coarse hand and had turned to this to draw. Did 
she do well.f^ Would Da Vinci have done so — he 

" Who threw the faulty pencil by. 
And years instead of hours employed. 
Learning the veritable use 
Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath 
Lines and hue of the outer sheath,'* 

that he might perchance reproduce one motive of 
those physical powers 

"that make 
The poorest coarsest human hand 
An object worthy to be scanned 
A whole Hfe long for their sole sake"? 

She hears him laugh her woes to scorn. 

"The fool forsooth is all forlorn 
Because the beauty, she thinks best. 
Lived long ago or was never born, — 
Because no beauty bears the test 
In this rough peasant Hand!" 

This faultless beauty, this perfect pattern, 
"lived long ago or was never born".? Perhaps the 
same is true of perfect love. Yes; for Da Vinci 
reproves her cry, 



saymg, 



'I must live beloved or die!* 



The peasant hand that spins the wool 
And bakes the bread, why lives it on. 
Poor and coarse with beauty gone, — 
What use survives the beauty?" 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE 203 

She has her lesson. Earth does not yield the per- 
fect whole; but life and art have each their use, and 
so has love. So has the love in her own heart, which, 
because now imperfectly requited, lifts her to the 
serene height where she can see its present good, 
not as a consolation but as a stimulus for life and 
hope, and, so far, as positive satisfaction. This is 
for her the transcending power of love. 



IX 

So fortified, with the lesson learned, James Lee's 
wife sets him free, sails away into exile from the 
land and the home where love had been life, and 
life had been love. The fault of too much loving ! of 
mistaking love for life and life for love ! Of putting 
aside life's daily uses for some pettish seeking of the 
perfect whole which earth does not yield — and 
missing it, part by part, the while ! She has learned 
her lesson. — How? To know she "should be dead 
of joy " could their two hearts in perfect love be one. 



THE STATUE AND THE BUST 

Love and Indolence 

Ages ago there leaned out of a certain palace 
window in Florence a lady, newly married, with 
her bridesmaids, one on either hand; and they saw 
how the blush of the bride increased as she watched 
an idle knight riding in the square below. "Who 
rides by with the royal air?" she asked. "The 
Great-Duke Ferdinand," was the whispered reply. 
And he, in turn, riding gayly with a friend as gay as 
he, looked up inquiringly. "A bride the Riccardi 
brings home to-day," was the answer. White was 
her brow and black her hair; and he looked at her 
with a lover's eye. She looked upon him as one 
who awakes. 

That night the bridal feast was held on the Via 
Larga. The Duke was there, and 

on the lady a kiss conferred 
As the courtly custom was of yore. 

Plainly, the marriage was not an affair of the 
heart, but a convenient arrangement between two 
scheming families. The formal greeting between 
guest and wife had instantly become a message of 
love; and its significance had not escaped the hus- 
band nor failed to arouse his avenging ire. Impris- 
oned she must be, away from life and danger. Her 
lone window looked out upon the square, the Via 
Larga. Here she might view the world beneath, 



THE STATUE AND THE BUST 205 

but be not of it. Openly the bride acquiesced; but 
secretly she resolved to escape. A moment brought 
the thought of her father, come to bless their union, 
and of the pain she might cause him; and the resolve 
broke, for the time at least. To-morrow she would 
flee, or the next day. She would wait a little 
while. 

The Duke, on his side, resolved to win her. 
Though dearly the cup of this love might cost him, 
he would drain it to the dregs. On the morrow, 
therefore, he proposed to the Riccardi a visit to 
Petraja in the Apennines, ostensibly to escape. the 
heat and gloom of the city, and compensate for the 
dullness of last night's feast. But the cunning offer 
was declined with courtly thanks. The lady's 
health was delicate and would not permit it. The air 
of the Apennines was too chill at Petraja. Very 
well; "Be our feast to-night as usual here," said 
the Duke with an inward resolution to abduct the 
lady then. But stop! One thing lies in the way. 
The Envoy comes to-night with business from 
France. That must be attended to. Love must 
keep for a day. Besides, he may catch a sustaining 
glimpse of the lady at her window, as he has 
before. 

So said, so done. But, alas! the successive days 
passed in vows and vows only. Ever and anon 
something intervened to avert fruition. Yet still 
each thought, when the storm passed the rose 
would blossom, and all in good time. So they 
waited, ever waited, in the consolation of losing no 
friends and gaining no foes and ever cherishing the 
sweet boon of the daily glance they stole each out 



206 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

of the other's face, as the one delayed at the 
palace window and the other rode in the square 
below. 

The weeks grew months, and the months grew 
years, until youth had gone and old age had come 
to look at the lady boldly, as she peered at her sil- 
vered hair, her puckered brow, her hollow eye and 
haggard cheek staring back at her from the mirror. 
Startled at the apparition, she commanded that a 
sculptor be brought to fix her face with what vestige 
of beauty yet remained, saying. My image in clay 
will serve just as well for life's uses as myself does 
now. Let it be carved there in the cornice of the 
shrine for all who will to look upon. Robbia's 
craft shall stay what yet there is of beauty and 
youth. 

The fate of the Duke.^^ It was just the same. 
"Can the soul, the will, die out of a man" as youth 
escapes? Even so, let the record remain. Bring me 
the crafty sculptor, John of Douay, and bid him 
fashion my statue of bronze and place it in the Via 
Larga I have crossed so often, that men may ad- 
mire, and admit that once I knew how to take my 
pleasure, the while, alas! I lie in my tomb and 
laugh "at idleness which aspires to strive"! 

This is the sermon and this the commentary on 
an equestrian statue and a lady's bust seen to this 
day on the square of Florence : Thus men fail, pos- 
sessed of a longing, but deprived, by their own in- 
ertia, of the power of possession and attainment. 
What if the Duke's and the Lady's desire was a 
crime and their wish a vice? A counter will serve 



THE STATUE AND THE BUST '207 

as well as a coin to illustrate the game. If you 
choose to play at all, play well. 

Let a maD contend to the uttermost 
For his Hfe's set prize, be it what it will! 

The sin of failure is the unlit lamp and the ungirt 
loin ! The unpardonable crime of life is inertia and 
irresolution, — the "idleness which aspires to 
strive." 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 

Love and the Conventions 

An old huntsman, bald yet hearty and hale, is 
seated over his cups with a friend. The liquor they 
clink in their cannikins is green Moldavia, 

Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids. 

And friendship is as exhilarating, giving the soul a 
stir-up, suppling a dry brain, quickening the heart, 
and guaranteeing age is not all sloth and ease. 

Long since has Jacynth, the huntsman's wife, 
found her repose in the churchyard, and all their 
children, too, have gone the way of the roses. Ah, 

Love is the only good in the world ! 

And, now that he is old and times have changed, it 
is sweet to ponder his by-gone youth. It is sweeter 
to plan how, once more, to meet one he knew in 
those dear young days of his, and, having met her, 
to go to his own rest at last. Since the Duchess's 
flight thirty years have passed — long years — and 
with them has gone his head's adorning. Yes, old 
age is here. But the Duke's yoke was hard to 
bear, and for that very reason he helped her off 
with it. The tale is a curious one, and here it is. 
— Says the huntsman, tippling his Cotnar : 

The Duke's demesne is a great wild country. It 
is hard for the eye to sweep the wide reach of it. 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 209 

First, there's the cornfield land; and then come 
the vineyards where flocks are packed ; and, beyond, 
the sheep-range leads to cattle tract and open 
chase, and then to the very foot of a mountain 
where dark priest-like pine trees go up on this side 
and down on the other to still wilder and wider 
lands 

Whence iron's dug, and copper's dealt; 

And forge and furnace mould and melt. 

And then, beyond that lies the bounding rim of the 

salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore. 
— And the whole is our Duke's country. 

It was as many years ago as I am old that the 
Duke was born. 

We are of like age to an hour. 

My father was huntsman before me — none better 
— and the 

old Duke would rather 
He lost a salt-pit than my father. 

A great day it was when the bantling was brought 
out and shown to the wondering people. The news 
of it reached the Kaiser's ears, — the Kaiser of our 
old Teuton land, — and it was not long before 
his courier blew his horn at the castle gate. 

Since 
The Duke has got an heir, our Prince 
Needs the Duke's self at his side. 

This was the summons; and the Duke, though 
unwilling, was not long in obeying it. He went. 



210 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

with a wince to be sure, but thinking of world-wide 
wars, castles afire, and men on the march with 
crests and shields and banners flying. Alas ! it was 
not the grand parade of arms after victory that 
awaited him; but, instead, a gilt glove, a silk shoe, 
and a velvet petticoat like a herald's; and but one 
short year sufficed to finish him amid the perfumed 
confinement of the court. And so he died, and 

' So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess 
Was left with the infant in her clutches. 

At the castle, long years of solitude ensued; for 
mother and child went away to her tribe, leaving 
the halls empty and the fires out. Loud our people 
railed and gibed at the desertion, but in vain. Years 
after, though, when the little Duke had grown a 
man, they returned one day from their travels, 

— he 

the pertest little ape 
That ever affronted human shape. 

Not that he despised the bluff old ways of his coun- 
trymen; far from it. Rather, he overdeemed them 

— overdid them — since in Paris the elf's noddle 
had been filled with superior notions of his rough 
old northland as the world of lays. He thought 
there still survived here in this evil time the he- 
roic spirit of the Middle Age, reflected in its 

true castles, with proper towers. 
Young-hearted women, old-minded men, 
And manners now as manners were then. 

So he set his heart foolishly on a revival of old 

usages. 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 211 

In due course it was decided the time had come 
for him to marry. It was the spring of the year. 
The word of his intention having been promptly 
broached abroad, the lady came as promptly, and 
all preparations were made for her arrival. 

My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger! 
She was the smallest lady alive. 

Nor was she hard to please. Indeed, overfilled with 
gladness, she approved of all things as she saw 
them. Suddenly the Duke appeared. She was just 
lightly springing down, her foot upon my hand, 
when he stepped up, stiff -backed, and greeted her 
with his grandest smile; and just as suddenly, like 
a wind to the northward, chilly and forbidding, 
loomed up in the rear the old Dame, his mother, 
and, alas! 

The lady's face stopped its play, 
As if her first hair had grown gray. 

But the world seemed good to her, for she had just 
come out of a convent; so 

In a day or two she was well again; 
And smiling as at first went she. 

She was full of life and vivacity, and she looked 
about her pleasantly, seeing how much was to be 
done, and eager to do it. But no; every one had his 
post, every man his office. She was to be an orna- 
ment merely, she perceived soon enough — a tro- 
phy with the other trophies — to sit, stand, see, 
and be seen at the proper place and time, whether 
outside the hall or in it, and thus die away by slow 



212 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

degrees. The idleness itself was irksome enough; 
but to make it more so, the Duke and his mother 
listened with contemptuous complacency to her 
sprightly comments, whether praise or blame. 

So the little lady grew pale and silent, hiding her 
chagrin as best she might. But this did not escape 
the Duke's watchful and jealous eye; he declared 
it was done to spite him, and sooner or later he 
would mend matters to his taste. 

Autumn came with its frosty mornings; so frosty 
that early, ere the sun rose, the pond was covered 
with a thin sheet of ice. "Just the time for a 
hunting party," thought the Duke, consulting his 
calendar for the pleasures in season. Poets were 
ransacked for all the old usages of the chase; 
paintings, tapestries, panels studied for the least 
suggestion for accouterments, trappings, jerkins 
and hose of venerers, prickers, and verderers. All 
was to be done in the precise manner and spirit of 
the Middle Age, and no pains were spared to find 
out how. Eureka! By dint of much searching 
and questioning, the lady's function, too, was dis- 
covered: 

"When horns wind amort and the deer is at siege. 
Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet. 
And, with water to wash the hands of her liege 
In a clean ewer with a fair towelling. 
Let her preside at the disembowelling." 

So thought the Duke, but not so the Lady; she 
lifted tired lashes, spoke of her health, and, thank- 
ing him, declined the hunting. As everything had 
been got in readiness, — the towel and oldest ewer 
for the disemboweling, a piebald, pink-eyed jennet 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 213 

for her to ride on, — no wonder the Duke was 
nettled and found her conduct most affronting. 
Nevertheless, she persisted; while he, on his part, 
kept fuming, amazed and stricken dumb in a sultry 
smother of vexation and chagrin, and at last, in 
grim despair, handed the vixen over to her mother- 
in-law for schooling and correction. 

At sunrise all our company gathered. The hunts- 
man was bidden unkennel the hounds. The pricker 
blustered and bustled. The courtyard was filled 
with fog, thick enough to chop with an axe; in the 
Duke was a queasy sulkiness. Soon came the sun, 
dispelling the mists, and, in its wake, as chance 
would have it, a band of gypsies. They came no one 
knew whence, all unexpectedly, as if risen from the 
ground. 

Curious folk, the gypsies. Few things they can- 
not make. Ores they fashion into snaffle and lock, 
horseshoes and bells. No better glass-blowers, no 
better potters than they ! 

Such are the works they put their hand to. 
The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to. 

Up out of the valley they sauntered, men and 
women, to meet the Duke as he rode from the 
castle. Annually they came, — and each time, 
they swore, for the last time, — to pay the Duke 
their respects, and importune a stipend. Up they 
sallied till they reached the moat and there 
stopped, letting an old witch squeeze out from 
their midst — a stooping old crone whom Ja- 
cynth used to bother me to have tell our fortune. 
She seemed the oldest gypsy alive. She sidled up 



214 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

to the Duke, peering at him so steadily through 
her eyes, or rather eye-holes, that the horse he 
rode reared back in a fright. Then, in a whee- 
dling voice she broke silence, — a voice like the 
whine of a violin, — and proffered him gifts: a 
dog-whistle, a porcelain mouth-piece for a pipe- 
end; then stopped, awaiting the Duke's good pleas- 
ure. Not a word from the Duke, till the crone, 
with a sly afterthought, declared she had come to 
pay her homage to the new Duchess, the youthful 
beauty. A sudden thought lit up his features: 

. . . Who so fit a teacher of trouble 
As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double? 

His child wife must grow up. 

If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow. 
She, foolish to-day, would be wiser to-morrow. 

And I was the man the Duke beckoned to con- 
duct the gypsy to the lady's chamber. And while 
I was coming, he told the crone about what he 
deemed the Duchess's forwardness and ingrati- 
tude, and got no doubt a promise to give the will- 
ful child a thorough frightening. 

Needless to say, he was mistaken; and that's why 
we 're coming to our story. Of a sudden, the witch's 
mien was wholly altered. The face looked trans- 
figured. The eye-holes gradually grew eyes, live 
and aware. And her cloak, too, which before had 
hung loose in tatters, showed fringes of gold coins 
along the edges. So we came to the door of the 
lady's chamber, and found Jacynth standing guard 
outside and glad for company of any sort, since not 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 215 

a single word had the lady spoken the whole day 
long. So they entered the presence together, leav- 
ing me to pace the balcony without and watch the 
weather. 

What took place at first it were hard to say, as 
Jacynth, on entering the room, seemed suddenly 
bewitched and dropped away into profound uncon- 
sciousness, while I, on the balcony, suspecting 
little, found engrossment in the hunt as it wound 
from bushes and hillocks to the open plain. Of 
a sudden, a strange sound arrested my ear — a 
sound as of some musical instrument, unheard 
before, yet sweet. What was it.f^ In a moment I 
had pushed aside the lattice and pulled up the cur- 
tain, only to see Jacynth fallen asleep in a tense 
attitude of attention, with her head against the 
door; and there, as on a seat of state, the woman 
sat, bending over my lady, who knelt enraptured 
between the witch's knees, drinking in, with face 
upturned, a light that streamed from either pupil. 
Up and down moved the gypsy's hands in a curious 
gesture. Was it blessing or was it banning? The 
matter was past finding out; for, as I listened, fas- 
cinated, to the sound and its weird accompaniment 
of motion, myself was seized by the spell. And this 
is what she murmured : — 

"We will go on a long and terrible journey. I 
trace the story in the marks your veins make on 
your forehead. We will reach' our tribe, and you 
shall be placed in our midst. The mystic mark here 
says so. The kindred gleam in the depths of your 
deep, dark eyes confirms it. The scarlet tinge on 
your cheek proclaims it. You shall take the vow 



216 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

and join us. Trials will come, but you shall endure 
them victoriously and know, finally, your great 
deliverance and this, that 

love is the only good in the world. 
Henceforth be loved as heart can love. 
Or brain devise, or hand approve ! 

You shall be ours and we yours, as the vine is the 
sturdy tree's that props it and the steadfast tree is 
the clinging vine's that seeks it. Proud we may be 
of you or ashamed, glad or angry, but indifferent 
never, as you share our lot in crowded city or lonely 
swamp — always ours and one of us until the twi- 
light of old age shall fuse all the memories of life 
into one hue, and from the dark the gleam of an- 
other morning shall touch the flesh and waken the 
soul from its long dream." 

Here the voice grew more and more musical and 
the words less and less distinct until only music 
entranced the ear, and I, too, stood bound by the 
spell. Then, of a sudden, snap went the charm, and 
I awoke! The crone had been bewitching the lady, 
I knew, and, with a spring, I leapt from the case- 
ment, ran round to the door and found, not the 
Duchess, but the Duchess transformed, — 

She was so different, happy and beautiful. 

And I.f^ I stood stock-still, awaiting her commands, 
seeing a new light in the eye, a new brightness on 
the brow, a new life in her breathing. And then I 
knew that I was hers, and hers only, for life or for 
death. Instinct told me of her slightest wish. 
Without command or faltering I led the way, and 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 217 

we descended into the courtyard. As to the crone, 
not a semblance of her bewitchment shone from 
eye or feature. Back into its stooped body her soul 
had shrunk, as back into its sheath a sword is sent. 
Quickly I saddled the palfrey that had brought my 
lady as a bride, and quickly she mounted, the gypsy 
behind her. Fain was I to follow on my own nag, 
but a little shake of the head said no, and all I could 
do was to stammer my readiness to serve her 

Whenever God should please she needed me. 

And her look of gratitude was a crown and a bless- 
ing to me as, with a gracious gesture, she dropped 
me what I shall prize until the day of judgment. 

It was a little plait of hair 

Such as friends in a convent make 

To wear, each for the other's sake. 

And I took it, and put it in my breast, where it still 
lies and shall lie, always. And then (to cut the 
story short) I pushed open the gate, she bounded 
away on her palfrey, and so we lost her ! 

Futile were it to describe the consternation of 
the Duke on his returning, and the panic of the 
yellow old mother-in-law. At the news she only 
snapped viciously like a man-eating shark at its 
prey. But to me the light had all gone out of the 
world — the face of it looked so stern and forbid- 
ding. The lady had fled, and all things seemed to 
have come to a standstill. Yet the world, thinking 
otherwise, poured out and spent its full spite on 
me. Nor did the old Duchess, as you might well ex- 
pect, die outright of futile chagrin, like a thwarted 



218 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

snake stinging itself to death; but the affair was 
hushed up between them and a ban put upon the 
subject in their presence. For sorely the Duke's 
pride was hurt, and the sore rankled. No search 
was made, and no inquiry; and whenever a fresh 
band of gypsies paid us a visit, they were bidden 
at once be gone and haste beyond the border. 

Some day soon I shall pack up and go journeying 
with a staff and a plump skinful of wine. For Ja- 
cynth, you see, and the children lie snug in the 
churchyard; and what's left for me but to go trav- 
eling and find my lady in the land of the gypsies? 
And, having found her, to find me out 

some snug corner 
Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight. 
Turn myself round and bid the world good-night; 
And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing 
Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen) 
To a world where will be no further throwing 
Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen! 



CRISTINA 

Love Idealized 

The speaker is a jilted lover who is telling his 
story to a sympathetic friend. The woman who 
jilted him has married another for honors and posi- 
tion. 

The Friend has said : Why do you waste so much 
time in brooding over this woman's rejection of 
you? She is a thoughtless flirt and deserves no 
more of your concern. Clearly, she meant no harm. 

The jilted Lover replies with conviction: I am 
not so sure what the lady meant. But she should 
never have looked at me as she did, picking me out 
from the whole circle of her wooers, if she meant I 
should not love her. Those others are men of a sort 
whom one — with reservations, to be sure — 
might call men; men whom "she may discover all 
her soul to, if she pleases," without scruple about 
the harm done. But I am not of their kind, and she 
knew it. 

The Friend: Still it is not clear that she was 
serious. 

The Lover: What? Not serious? She meant 
nothing? True, I am unable to weigh that point 
precisely. Yet that she is a mere empty-headed 
coquette, I cannot bring myself to believe. Surely, 
too, she can have intended no vile cant such as that 
"the sea feels the need of strewing the bleakness of 
some lone shore with its pearl-seed," or that "souls 



220 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

have a strange yearning to give most lavishly to 
those who have least to render in return." 

The Friend : Yet the world is the world, and 
women as well as men are not perfect. 

The Lover (with rapt expression) : True, we 're 
sunk enough here, God knows ! But not irredeem- 
ably sunk. To all of us come moments — seldom 
enough, though surely — when the spirit's true 
endowments stand forth separated from its false 
ones, point out for us the right way from the wrong 
one, and let us know if we are choosing triumph or 
disaster. Such times reveal crises in our lives, — 
perhaps in flashes struck from midnights, perhaps 
in fire-flames noondays kindle. At such moments 
of revelation piled-up honors perish, and swollen 
ambitions dwindle; and some poor impulse, for 
once having free play, seems the sole work of a life- 
time and the only thing worth while. 

The Friend: But had the Lady such an in- 
sight? 

The Lover : Can you doubt she felt in some such 
moment — perhaps the moment when with that 
look she fixed me, that supreme moment when she 
revealed to me her soul — felt clear proof of the 
soul's existence ages past, its little sojourn in this 
world, its flight hence for ages more; and felt 
clearly that its tarrying here is only for this love- 
way, whereby it seeks with some other soul to 
mingle.? This opportunity lost, this life loses its 
supreme end and loses it eternally. There may be 
other, perhaps deeper, blisses in store elsewhere, 
but this life's supreme purpose has been lost to this 
life here. Do you doubt — I cannot! — that she 



CRISTINA 221 

felt this when at her look our two souls rushed to- 
gether? 

The Friend: Then why should she have jilted 
you? 

The Lover: Oh, of course, next moment the 
thought of wealth, position — the world's ambi- 
tions — trampled out the light forever. It is a way 
the devil has, to quench such knowledge lest we 
walk the earth in rapture. But it only makes those 
who catch God's secret so much the more prize it. 

The Friend: And you are one of these? 

The Lover : Yes, such am I. Thank Heaven the 
secret's mine. Though she has lost me, I have 
gained her. Her soul's mine; and so, having per- 
fected love's intention for me here, I shall spend my 
remaining days satisfied. Life will just suffice to 
prove both our powers, hers and mine, alone and 
blended. After that, may the next life come — 
and quickly! For this world's purpose will have 
been fulfilled. 



MY LAST DUCHESS 

Love Perverted 

The Duchess of Ferrara was a woman beloved 
by every one for her abounding good spirits and joy 
in Hfe. She loved all beautiful things without stint 
— the waning day, and all the passing moods of 
Nature. She loved all living creatures, and, not 
the least of these, the "white mule" upon which 
she used to ride around the terrace of the ducal 
grounds. She was the soul of good nature and cour- 
tesy to all with whom she came in contact, for she 
loved goodness and kindness in all persons without 
distinction of rank or fortune; loved gracious words 
and favors. And, to show her gratitude, she with- 
held no kindly impulse. And her ways were always 
simple and natural, as the blush attested that 
mantled her cheek whenever she was pleased. And 
in all her graciousness there spoke a simple sincer- 
ity; from her countenance there shone a "depth of 
earnestness and passion" which none who looked 
upon her could miss. 

The Duke of Ferrara was proud of her beauty; 
but prouder still of his own rank and culture; proud 
of his lineage, whose greatness had been famed 
through nine centuries. But he was not kind ex- 
cept as kindness exacted obeisance to his pride. 
Neither was he gracious or generous. He loved 
beauty, — the beauty of the Duchess, — but only 
so far as it flattered his superior tastes, which he 



MY LAST DUCHESS 223 

gratified in the attainment of many splendid works 
of art. His greatest joy lay in the possession of a 
rare statue or painting. Pride was his master- 
passion, and even the Duchess was esteemed only 
to the extent to which she paid tribute to it; and as 
she, in her ingenuousness, could not do so con- 
sciously and completely, a day came when his sel- 
fishness broke all bounds, chiding her cruelly in his 
jealous rage. 

It was the day when Fra Pandolf, the painter, 
came to make her portrait, and with lavish cour- 
tesy paid homage to her charms, saying, "Her 
mantle laps over my lady's wrist too much." She 
blushed; and this display of beauty called forth a 
still warmer compliment — "Paint must never 
hope to reproduce the faint half-flush that dies 
along her throat." The Duke in anger noticed this. 
Not that he was jealous of any improprieties on 
Fra Pandolf 's part, but rather of the Duchess's un- 
disguised pleasure at the slightest encouragement. 
Her blush, he felt, was as deep for the artist as for 
him — her husband and the Duke. It was the 
same at all times. She was "too soon made glad, 
too easily impressed," liking whatever "she looked 
on," and "her looks went everywhere." She was 
too lavish with her affections — too indiscrimi- 
nate, the Duke's "favor at her breast" ranking just 
the same in her regard as the "bough of cherries 
some officious fool broke in the orchard for her." 
Rank and name seemed to be as nothing in her eyes. 
He would not say exactly what it was in her that 
disgusted him, he would not stoop to seek excuse 
or explanation. He commanded her to have a care 



224 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

and mind her station. The proprieties must not be 
trifled with. . . . 

And then, of a sudden, the bright smile, that 
had been for all, stopped, the bloom on her cheek 
faded, and her flower-like beauty withered on the 
stalk and died. Her spirit broken, a gloom settled 
on all her joyous ways, and soon the Duke's world 
knew her no more. 

But the cold heart of the man felt no mourning. 
On the contrary, he had rid himself of a vexing and 
unappreciative companion; while in the fine paint- 
ing by Fra Pandolf he had retained as much of her 
as he had ever cared for — her matchless charms — • 
and had gained, besides, a wondrous work of art. 
The painting was indeed a masterpiece — a full- 
length portrait — with the characteristic blush of 
joy, the "depth of passion" in the earnest counte- 
nance. Greatly he prized it among his other price- 
less possessions, giving it unstinted praise in the 
presence of all visitors to the gallery. 

But the ducal hall could not long remain without 
a mistress, and soon negotiations were begun to 
fill the poor Duchess's place. The daughter of a 
neighboring Count of "known munificence" would 
grace the palace and do honor to its guests. A 
messenger was sent from Duke to Count, from 
Count to Duke; and but one matter, a point of 
weight and moment, remained to be determined — 
the question of the dowry to go with the lady's 
hand. The Count's agent, having come with a reply 
from his master, — and here the poem opens, — is 
conducted through a company of guests to the gal- 
lery above and shown the prized beauty of the late 



MY LAST DUCHESS 225 

Duchess caught and fixed by Fra Pandolf s facile 
brush. The interview ended, the curtain that hides 
the treasure from the gaze of the unworthy is drawn 
close again, and envoy and Duke leave it for the 
company below. 

But the beautiful painting, were it endowed with 
the unsullied simplicity of the last Duchess and 
the gift of her innocent speech, might suggest un- 
consciously the deadly horror of a union where love 
is not, or having been, is perverted by an arrogant 
pride. 



SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER 

Love Perverted by the Conventions of Religion 

It is mid-afternoon on a far-past day in mediaeval 
Spain, and the slanting rays of the sun lie lazily 
upon the quadrangular court of a monastery, and 
upon the figures of two monks, one of whom is pac- 
ing idly the paved walk of the arched and columned 
cloister, while the other is more industriously en- 
gaged in the monastery garden. The light falls upon 
the garden's rich and well-kept verdure. There are 
fruit-trees, pleasant to see, greengages and oranges 
among their leaves; there is a vegetable plat, whose 
herbs and melons often grace the tables of the 
Abbot and his monks. And the bright-colored flow- 
ers against their soft background of bush and tree 
glow and blend in the yellowing light. Brother 
Lawrence, whose devoted care they are, goes busily 
about from one to the other, now trimming a myr- 
tle-bush, now watering a rose-acacia in its leaden 
vase. 

Beyond the Convent court, just outside its bor- 
dering bank, the afternoon light lies less quietly 
upon the brilliant beauty of two girls, Dolores and 
Sanchicha, steeping their blue-black, lustrous 
tresses in the tank of water there and exchanging 
gossip to pass the hours away. 

The shadows lengthen; soon the Vesper-bell will, 
ring out its summons to prayer. 

It is an age — this of Brother Lawrence — of 



SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER 227 

curious conviction and controversy with regard to 
forms of ritual and modes of religious belief and 
worship — the followers of Manes, for example, 
holding to the faith that light is the source of all 
good, and darkness the source of all evil, and that 
between these two forces there is conflict intermin- 
able; and the adherents of Arius espousing the 
principle that Christ, the Son, having been begot- 
ten by the Father, is subordinate and not equal to 
Him in the triune Godhead. And these two forms 
of heresy, having been under especial condemnation 
in Spain for a long time, the names "Manichee" 
and " Arian," to designate their devotees, had come 
to be widely current as epithets of opprobrium and 
infamy. 

As it is an age, too, of extreme devotion to cere- 
monial and intense conviction of its efficacy, it is 
not to be wondered at that even a monk should 
seek to attain a special grace at "refection" by 
taking his drink of orange juice, as the idle brother 
boasts he does, in three sips to illustrate the Trin- 
ity, and, after the meal, by laying his knife and 
fork crosswise to praise the Crucified; or that he 
should attribute a supernatural power to a Scrip- 
tural text when used as a charm; or venture to make 
a compact to sell his soul to Satan and yet hope to 
escape the disastrous consequences by leaving a 
flaw in the indenture. Nor is it to be wondered at 
that such ceremonial, instead of bettering its de- 
votee, should undo the shallow-hearted, leading 
him to rely, for his soul's salvation or escape, on 
some deft hocus-pocus at the end. 

Such a person is the brother who, a little before 



228 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Vespers on this old-time summer afternoon in 
Spain, is taking his accustomed recreation in the 
paved cloister of his convent, while Brother Law- 
rence is enjoying his habitual diversion in whole- 
some and useful exercise among the roses, lilies, 
and melons of the garden. Hatred, whose motive 
is the envy which the naturally evil feel toward the 
naturally good, fills the heart of the idle brother as 
he watches the gardener at work; his imprecations 
almost choking him with their passionate malig- 
nity as he mutters them under his breath : — 

Water your damned flower-pots, do! 
If hate killed men. Brother Lawrence, 
God's blood, would not mine kill you! 

He rambles on, unheard by Brother Lawrence: The 
silly talk I must hear, sitting next to you at table, 
about the sort of season we're having, the dearth 
in the "cork-crop" and the scarcity of "oak-galls" 
— bosh ! And then to be asked for the Latin of 
parsley — the prig! What's the Greek for Swine's 
Snout — him, I say? Whew ! How careful we are to 
have our platter polished brightly, to lay it away 
neatly on our own individual shelf, to provide our- 
self with a fire-new spoon; to have, too, our own 
private goblet marked with L. for our initial and 
rinsed like something sacred before it is fit to touch 
our chaps — 

See there! He — he! He's broken that lily with 
his clumsiness! Serves him right! 

They call him a saint, the hypocrite! Saint, in- 
deed ! — looking with gloating eyes, as I know he 
does, at Dolores and Sanchicha squatting over 




SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER 229 

there. What, a saint? — when he scarcely knows 
enough to lay his knife and fork crosswise, as I do 
at refection in Jesu's praise, or to illustrate the 
Trinity and confound Arianism by drinking his 
orange- water in three sips, as I do mine — but he 
must swallow it, like the dolt he is, at one unholy 
gulp! 

There he goes to his precious melons, now. If 
he's able, he says, he'll give us all a feast. How 
nice! One whole one will go to the Abbot's table. 
We're to be thankful if we each get a slice. Ho, ho! 
he's looking at the flowers. Not one of the fruit- 
sort can he find. Strange ! he does n't know the 
pains I've taken to keep them close-nipped on the 
sly! 

Yes, I'll have him yet — I swear I will, by hook 
or crook! I'll trip him, dying, just when he's sur- 
est of Heaven, with a certain reliable text from 
Galatians and send him scurrying off to hell, a 
Manichee. Or, if that won't serve, I '11 seduce and 
corrupt him with my scrofulous French novel, 
folding the pages down at the risky place and slip- 
ping it into his basket when next he gathers his 
greengages. Or, should that fail, one can turn to 
Satan and sell one's soul — always, of course, with 
a flaw in the indenture as a loop-hole of escape — 
for the sweet satisfaction of blasting that rose- 
acacia we're so proud of! Something I'll find to 
cross and curse him with. But hush! There's the 
Vesper-bell, and I must pray. "Plena gratia, Ave, 
Virgo!" There — he's praying too! Oh, how I 
hate him ! Gr-r-r- you swine ! 



Concerning Art 



ANDREA DEL SARTO 

Perfection in the Technique of Art 

Andrea del Sarto, "the faultless painter," and 
his wife Lucrezia are seated in a window of their 
house in Fiesole. It is the twilight of evening. 
Behind them is Andrea's studio with its wealth of 
paintings, some from his own brush, others from 
Michel Agnolo's and Rafael's. The season is 
autumn. Through the window they see and hear 
the varying signs of life in Fiesole: a bell's clinking 
from the chapel -top and a monk leaving the con- 
vent garden opposite, darkened by the trees which 
huddle close to the convent wall. The dusk gradu- 
ally settles, obscuring Mount Morello's outline in 
the distance. The stars appear overhead. A little 
while later the cue-owl speaks, and they withdraw 
from the open window into the interior of the 
room. 

Andrea has achieved his name "the faultless 
painter" through native gifts and well-used oppor- 
tunities. When a vagabond scrub in Florence, 
Rafael and Agnolo had not been ashamed to give 
him praise. Once he won the admiration and pa- 
tronage of King Francis in Paris, and one long 
festal year he passed in the splendor of Fontaine- 
bleau. Here, at the invitation of Francis, human- 
great monarch of France, he wrought with brush 
and canvas, the King's breath on him. Proudly he 
painted while all the court watched, seeing with the 



234 STORIES FROM BROWTS^ING 

King's eyes. Profusely his hand kept plying, as the 
King stood by with one finger in his beard or 
twisted curl over his mouth's good mark that made 
the smile, with one arm thrown about the artist's 
shoulder and neck. And withal Lucrezia kept 
beckoning to him from Fiesole that he come back 
to her after his work should be done, to crown the 
issue with a last reward. 

Andrea could not await the result and yielded to 
the temptation before the work was finished. With 
the King's gold hidden in his pockets, he stole back 
to Lucrezia, built his house in Fiesole, and, leav- 
ing father and mother to die in want, lavished 
the remainder of his treasure on his idol. Thus 
Lucrezia had been a potent factor of ruin for 
Andrea. The Paris lords are on the lookout for him 
now, and he hardly dares stir from his studio for 
fear of meeting them. Lucky is it when they pass 
and look aside. Besides, there are gaming debts of 
her making, clandestine relations with a cousin, and 
gross extravagance in dress. Even now, as they sit 
in the window, and the dusk gathers, and the stars 
come out over the gray convent opposite, and the 
last monk is leaving the convent garden, the cousin 
is waiting below. He must have the money, and is 
awaiting Lucrezia' s return with it. He whistles im- 
patiently. She hears the preconcerted signal, while 
Andrea talks of his career, his art, his long love for 
her. But she cannot understand; could not if she 
would. How else could she at her impatient com- 
ing-in have ruined, in carelessly passing with her 
robes afloat, a painting the like of which others 
agonize to do but fail of doing.? How else could she 



ANDREA DEL SARTO 235 

have made so impatient an exit when the guilty 
whistle called a second time? 

Yet Andrea loves her in spite of all. To him she is 
his serpentining beauty still, with round on round 
of rolling flesh; perfect ears — too perfect to prick 
and put a pearl there; and a face which every one 
looks on and calls his. Her adorer and slave he 
will always be. He promises to paint the five pic- 
tures she requires. He will get the thirteen scudi 
for the ruff she fancies, and shut them in her small 
hand when next it shall take his. But she must sit 
for the pictures; it will save a model. 

That is what Andrea and Lucrezia quarreled 
about before the dusk gathered and the cousin's 
first impatient whistle was heard below; and this is 
the way Andrea proposes to mend matters. "Bear 
with me for once," he pleads. "Sit down and all 
shall happen as you wish." He bids her lay her 
hand in his to sit the quiet evening through, that 
thus he may gain refreshment for the morning's 
work. And thus prompted, he falls to musing on 
many things: on his art, his career in France, all 
his achievements and Lucrezia's part therein, 
sometimes as a help in a fleshly way, but oftener as 
a hindrance to a larger, a better, a spiritual influ- 
ence. He is called "the faultless painter." Per- 
fection in technique of color and line is his, and yet 
he knows himself to be a failure in the abiding soul- 
values of aTt. "A man's reach should exceed his 
grasp, or what's a heaven for.^^" 

I can do with my pencil what I know. 
What I see, what at bottom of my heart 
I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 



236 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 
I do not boast, perhaps. 

No sketches first, no studies, that's long past; 
1 do what many dream of all their lives. 

Yet how far short do I fall of their faulty accom- 
plishment. Morello's outline there is wrongly 
traced, the hue mistaken. But, with my work, all is 
silver-gray — a dead level of spiritual inefficiency. 
See Rafael pour out his soul, reaching above and 
through his art to heaven; yet note that arm in the 
painting — how wrongly put, and one stroke of my 
crayon would set it right. But no, rub it out; he's 
Rafael, and I am only I with my easy perfection 
and, Lucrezia, with — you. Who's to blame? 
Where the lack.? 

But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow. 
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, 
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — 
Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind ! 
Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 
**God and the glory! never care for gain. 
The present by the future, what is that? 
Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo! 
Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!" 
I might have done it for you. So it seems: 
Perhaps not. All is as God overrules. 
Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; 
The rest avail not. Why do I need you? 
"What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? 
In this world, who can do a thing, will not; 
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive : 
Yet the will 's somewhat — somewhat, toO, the power — 
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 



ANDREA DEL SARTO 237 

*T is safer for me, if the award be strict. 

That I am something underrated here, 

Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. 

But Lucrezia cannot understand, or will not. 
The divine eludes a mere fleshly nature. Dream, 
vision, meaning, soul are not to be waked from 
forth-right craft, but are a gift superadded. 

Beyond the penetration of the poet which could 
see into Andrea's habit of thought and portray the 
externals of life in a manner true to Andrea's age 
and time, the question of outstanding prominence 
here is the tragic one of perfection of workmanship 
failing through deficiency of imagination — a 
tragedy which has involved sterile, though able, 
eras no less than individuals. 

The union of physical charm with spiritual dull- 
ness, and the soul-numbing influence such a nature 
as Lucrezia's sheds about itself, have been common 
characteristics of Eve's-flesh as far back, no doubt, 
as the first tragedy in the garden of Eden. 



ERA LIPPO LIPPT 

Realism and Idealism in Art 

A SQUAD of police have made an arrest at an 
alley's end, in a mediaeval city near the gray of 
dawning. It is a quarter of the town "where spor- 
tive ladies leave their doors ajar." The prisoner is 
a monk, they guess by his garb, pushing their 
torches into his face to make quite sure. He resists; 
a scuffle ensues; he is overpowered. To secure their 
prisoner the better, they thrust their fists a-fiddling 
at his throat. With a deadly gullet's-gripe they 
hold him thus. Seeing who their captive is, and 
persuaded by a timely bribe — a quarter-florin 
wherewith to drink a health — they lower pike and 
lantern, loosen their grip, and, mollified, seat them- 
selves with hip to haunch in a ring around and lis- 
ten to his story, their eyes a-twinkle for further 
proffers from his willing hand. 

The season is spring. The night is warm. 
Brother Lippo Lippi, of the Carmine cloister, is 
recognized by his robe and tonsure. Yes, he con- 
fesses, it is he. Let them go search the cloister for 
others, too, if they cannot abate their officious 
zeal; pry into every corner; harry out 

Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole. 
And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 
Weke, weke, that's crept to keep him company. 

Half afraid of him, they ply their further ques- 
tions. He answers: 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI 239 

Who am 1? 
Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend 
Three streets off. . . . 

"He's a certain Cosimo of the Medici, and lives in 
the house that caps the corner, a munificent house, 
and I'm his painter." They nod their recognition. 
His doings have been reported from all quarters. 
And seeing they have a prize indeed, their palms 
itching for more gratuities, they affect an eager 
patience, begging his pardon for their surly rough- 
ness. 

But the artist's eye is alert. What subjects for 
his painting! That one a Judas! He in the door- 
way, the slave that holds John Baptist's head 
a-dangle by the hair. Had he a bit of chalk, now, 
or a stick of wood-coal, he'd draw them to the life. 

"Yes," he continues in answer to their importu- 
nities, "here's spring now, and carnival time, when 
singing bands roam up and down the town for 
merriment." Three long weeks he has been shut up 
in his prison-room, painting saints and saints for 
Master Cosimo of the Medici. Imprisoned.'^ Why.^^ 
For fear, most likely, that he'd wander off and 
leave the work unfinished. But, never mind, he '11 
return all safe and sound and no one the wiser, in 
the same way he came. Paint all night .^^ How 
could he.^ So, leaning out of window for fresh air, 
there came a band of laughing dancers, a hurry of 
little feet, a sweep of lute-strings and a whift of 
song: 

Flower o* the brooiriy 

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb 1 



240 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Flower o' the quince, 

I let Lisa go, and what good of life since? 

Flower o' the thyme . . . 

Round they went, three slim shapes, with a titter 
like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight. What 
then? Well, what of flesh and blood? Who 
would n't do the same? Into shreds went curtain 
and counterpane and coverlet, — all the bed-fur- 
niture, — and with a dozen knots there hung a 
ladder from the window. Down he swung, scram- 
bling somehow, and in a trice was after them, 
catching up with the fun hard by Saint Laurence 
with a hail-fellow-well-met for and from every 
one. 

And now that all is over, he must hasten back 
and get to bed and have a bit of sleep ere he go to 
work in the morning on the painting of Saint 
Jerome knocking at his poor old breast with his 
great round stone to subdue the flesh. If Master 
Cosimo announce himself, mum 's the word, natu- 
rally; for Cosimo must not know. His tonsure? 
They need not eye it so austerely. For, though a 
monk, he's flesh and blood no less. A beast? And 
why a beast? 

Flower o' the broom. 

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb I 

That's why or not, just as they choose. 

Scruples? Scruples, indeed, for Brother Lippo, 
left from infancy an orphan in the streets, starving, 
God knows how, on fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds 
and shucks, refuse and rubbish, with none to care 
for him. And then? One fine frosty day came old 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI 241 

Aunt Lapaccia and carried him away along the 
wall, over the bridge, by the straight cut to the 
convent. 'T was refection-time when the good fat 
father, wiping his own mouth, admitted them 
there, and gave him a piece of bread to munch (the 
first for a month). In brief, they made a monk of 
him at just eight years old, with good bellyfuls, 
serge to keep him warm, and blessed idleness all 
day long, and books and Latin. 

Flower o' the clove. 

All the Latin I construe is, ''amo" I love! 

I'm grown a man no doubt, I've broken bounds: 
You should not take a fellow eight years old 
And make him swear to never kiss the girls. 

But when a boy starves in the streets eight years 
together, he learns a thing or two other than Latin, 

Watching folks' faces to know who will fling 
The bit of half-stript grape-bunch he desires. 
And who will curse or kick him for his pains, 

or which gentleman in the processional will let him 
catch the candle-droppings that he may sell them 
again; wary to see if the dog trotting from the heap 
of offal in the street will bite if he rob it of its bone : 
thus, with soul and sense grown sharp with hunger, 
a ragamuffin will needs learn the look of things. Eye 
and brain crammed full, he fell to drawing faces on 
his copy-books, scrawled them within the antiph- 
onary's margin, on walls, benches, doors, till all 
the monks looked black and would have turned him 
out but for the Prior, who, saying, "What if at last 
we get our man of parts.?" bade Lippo daub away. 
Never was such prompt disburdening of crowded 



242 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

brain on the long blank walls of the monastery. He 
drew everything, nothing escaping his brush : every 
sort of monk, the folk at church, the gossips waiting 
to confess; a breathless fellow fresh from murder, 
in sanctuary at the altar-foot, with little children 
around him in a row of admiration and the victim's 
son shaking a fist with one fierce arm. At length the 
ladder is laid flat, and the fresco is unveiled. The 
monks crowd around to admire and praise. "It's 
the life," they cry. "Look at the boy who stoops 
to pat the dog, and the woman there just like the 
Prior's niece." "How, what's here.^^" interrupts 
the Prior; and stops it all in no time with prompt 
rebuke: "Your business, Lippo, is to paint men's 
souls and not their bodies; make them forget 
there's such a thing as flesh. Leave alone the small- 
ish female with the breasts. Never mind the legs 
and arms; paint the soul, like Giotto with his 
saints a-praising God, that sets us praising." What 
then? Swallowing his rage, he paints to please 
them — sometimes does, and sometimes not. But 
now he's his own master, paints as he pleases, 
having his friend there in the Corner-house. Yet 
still the old schooling sticks; he feels them peeping 
over his shoulder as he works — 

The heads shake still — " It's art's decline, my son! 
You're not of the true painters, great and old; 
Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find; 
Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer : 
Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!'* 

They are likeliest to know — they with their 
Latin? For him — he sees always the garden and 
God there a-making man's wife, and learning thus 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI 243 

his lesson of the value and significance of flesh, he 
does these wild things in pure rage, playing the 
fooleries they catch him at at carnival. 

Flower o' the peach. 

Death for us all, and his own life for each! 

Is he a beast, then? Even so. 

But he must be going. No, he needs no lights; 
the street's hushed and he knows his own way 
back. Good-by and a hand-shake. Zooks! there's 
the gray of morning ! 

To the persevering, if not to the cursory, reader 
it becomes apparent that the prime object of this 
poem is historical character-portrayal. How would 
a fleshly artist of the Middle Age, turning from 
the seK-abnegating and flesh-abhorring religion of 
his times, be likely to regard his art.? One illumi- 
nating answer to that question is given by William 
Edward Hartpole Lecky in his "Rationalism in 
Europe." It may serve to shed light upon the art of 
Browning's Andrea del Sarto as well. Says Lecky : 

As the old Catholic modes of thought began to fade, 
the religious idea disappeared from the paintings, and 
they became purely secular, if not sensual, in their tone. 
Religion, which was once the mistress, was now the serv- 
ant of art. Formerly the painter employed his skill 
simply in embellishing and enhancing a religious idea. 
He now employed a religious subject as the pretext for 
the exhibition of mere worldly beauty. He commonly 
painted his mistress as the Virgin. He arrayed her in the 
richest attire, and surrounded her with all the circum- 
stances of splendor. He crowded his pictures with nude 
figures with countenances of sensual loveliness, with 



244 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

every form and attitude that could act upon the pas- 
sions. . . . The creation of beauty became the single 
object of his art. His work was a secular work, to be 
judged by a secular standard. . . . The religion of one 
age is often the poetry of the next. 

To show something of this kind, or, rather, to 
portray an artist at work with the consciousness of 
something of this kind, is apparently the purpose 
of the poem. Paint the soul, says the Prior, like a 
fire, smoke — "vapor done up like a new-born babe 
(in that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) "; 
and ** never mind the legs and arms — 

. . . that white smallish female with the breasts. 
She's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would say. 
Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off! 
Have it all out!" 

The answer which Lippo confides under the 
strange circumstances of an arrest at the break of 
day near an alley's end "where sportive ladies 
leave their doors ajar," is a commentary on religion 
as well as on art, not only in their historical but in 
their essential aspects, perhaps for the very reason 
that the historical view reveals the essential one. 
Fra Lippo's answer is : — 

Does not body interpret soul, and soul body? 
Does beauty of face obscure spiritual meaning.? 
Or, if there is such a thing as sheer beauty with no 
soul at all, is it not something for the artist to find 
the soul within himself and to add that.^^ 

On the Prior's assumption and by Lippo's own 
conviction, the function of Art is the same as that 
of Religion; but to learn the meaning of both 
truly, one must abandon the ways of Giotto and 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI 245 

the Prior. Go back to Nature; she will reveal the 
secret. This is so for a few vital reasons: First, 
because of the authority of the instincts. Witness 
the old mill-horse who, "after hard years, throws 
up his stiff heels so" in pasture, because he knows 
perfectly the good of grass, and does not have to 
listen to the miller preaching about it. Second, 
because God made both man and Nature; and, in 
view of this, the right feeling to have is thankful- 
ness. For what? 

For this fair town's face, yonder river's line. 
The mountain round it and the sky above. 
Much more the figures of man, woman, child. 
These are the frame to. 

A third reason — because the function of Art is 
not to improve upon Nature, but, by means of 
superior insight and skill, to open men's eyes to the 
best in her. For 

We're made so that we love 
First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; 
And so they are better, painted — better to us. 
Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; 
God uses us to help each other so. 
Lending our minds out. 

Art, as compared with preaching, has a superior 
insight because it looks at things as they are — 
things missed by the million, but things the million 
thank the artist for pointing out. It is not neces- 
sary, were it possible, for the artist to compete with 
Nature and to beat her; but it is needful, first of 
all, to see. The simplest example will serve : — 



246 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Have you noticed, now. 
Your cuUion's hanging face? A bit of chalk, 
And trust me but you should, though! 

All that is required is to indicate the meaning 
already there. Is this, then, to take the "Prior's 
pulpit-place" and "interpret God"? Yes, even so. 

Oh, oh, 
It makes me mad to see what men shall do 
And we in our graves ! This world 's no blot for us. 
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: 
To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 

Art's superior insight, moreover, is not confined 
to lower things, but it can discern the true values 
of the higher things, even of those which are sup- 
posed to be the peculiar province of the pulpit. 
Art can see not only God making Eve in the gar- 
den, but it can see God's ministers, like John, 
Ambrose, Job, the man of Uz; and it can see God 
as well. Thus seeing, the artist, though a poor 
scapegrace like Fra Lippo, shall find himself 
accounted at the last one of God's own saints. ] 

Finally, the true function of Art is known in its 
effects. Here again its superiority to the pulpit is 
quite clear and unmistakable, despite the strictures 
of the Prior : — 

"Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer! 
. . . when your meaning 's plain 

It does not say to folk — remember matins, | 

Or mind you feast next Friday!" 

On the contrary. Art can instigate to prayer by 
the simplest means — so simple, indeed, that one 
would hardly call it art : — j 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI 247 

A skull and bones. 
Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what's best, 
A bell to chime the hour with. 

But Art can do much more. It can deeply stir the 
emotions and move men to right conduct. 

For pity and religion grow i' the crowd — 
Your painting serves its purpose! 

Study, for example, Fra Lippo's painting of 
Saint Laurence at Prato, where the fresco is 
splashed "in fine style." 

"How looks my painting, now the scaffold's down?" 
I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns — 

** Already not one phiz of your three slaves 
Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, 
But's scratched and prodded to our heart's content. 
The pious people have so eased their own 
With coming to say prayers there in a rage: 
We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. 

See what else Lippo can do: 

Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! Bless the nuns! 
They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint 
God in the midst. Madonna and her babe. 
Ringed by a bowery flowery angel-brood. 
Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 
As puff on puff of grated orris-root 
When ladies crowd to Church in midsummer. 
And then i' the front, of course a saint or two — 
Saint John, because he saves the Florentines, 
Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white 
The convent's friends and gives them a long day. 
And Job, I must have him there past mistake. 
The man of Uz (and Us without the z, 
Painters who need his patience). Well, all these 
Secured at their devotion, up shall come 
Out of a corner when you least expect. 



348 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

As one by a dark stair into a great light. 

Music and talking, who but Lippo! I! — 

Mazed, motionless and moonstruck — I'm the man! 

Back I shrink — what is this I see and hear? 

I, caught up with my monk's things by mistake. 

My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, 

I, in this presence, this pure company ! 

Where's a hole, where 's a corner for escape? 

Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 

Forward, puts out a soft palm — "Not so fast!" 

— Addresses the celestial presence, "nay — 

He made you and devised you, after all. 

Though he 's none of you ! Could Saint John there draw — • 

His camel-hair make up a painting-brush? 

We come to brother Lippo for all that, 

Iste perfedt opiis!*' 

The Prior was wrong. The world and the flesh 
have a place in Art as in Religion. Indeed, both 
Art and Rehgion must recognize this; for the 
truest art is an insight into things as they are, 
and its highest expression is the interpretation of 
things as they are to spiritual ends, — not by 
mere preaching, but in Art's own way. In short, 
the ideal is expressed in the real; and idealism and 
realism are inseparable terms. 



Concerning Faith 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 

Faith in an Ideal 

A BAND of men are carrying a corpse up a moun- 
tain side to a city at the top for burial. They have 
been trudging all night with their burden. Be- 
neath them sleeps the'plain. Above, at the moun- 
tain's rim, the day is breaking. The city for which 
they are bound is crowded with culture, and the 
plain which they are leaving behind is low, unlet- 
tered, of the night. As they march, they sing a 
heartening chorus, for the path is narrow and 
steep. But the city is a glorious destination, the 
home of high-flying birds, on the loftiest of a clus- 
ter of peaks where lightnings break and storms 
blow and meteors shoot — a city with its citadel 
and market-place gaping to receive them. 

The corpse that is being borne to this lofty sum- 
mit is that of a scholar who \ spent his life in the 
service of learning and a consuming ideal. Those 
who are bearing him on their shoulders were his 
pupils. Once he was a man of the features and face 
of Lyric Apollo, godlike in beauty. The years 
passed him by, unnoticed, till at length fame found 
him learned. Now death has found him, prema- 
turely old, bald, half -blind, with accents uncertain, 
yet with soul still athirst for the truth. 

As he toiled at his lonely task, men chided him 
for his pains. Yet, guided by an inner light, he 
stepped on with pride over men's pity, till youth 



252 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

was gone and old age come to bow and weigh him 
down. 

"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? 
Show me their shaping. 
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage." 

And, having mastered the scroll to the last, 
called for the comment to master that also. Even 
to the crumbs he'd fain eat up the feast of 
learning. 

. . . Before living he'd learn how to live — 

No end to learning : 
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive 

Use for our earning. 
Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes: 

Live now or never!" 
He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes! 

Man has Forever." 

No obstacle was too great, no detail too tedious or 
trivial. Though racked by calculus and attacked 
by tussis, scornful of rest, he addressed himself to 
the task, fierce as a dragon and not a whit troubled. 
Heedless of time, he threw on God God's task to 
make the heavenly period perfect the earthen, 
magnifying mind, venturing neck or nothing for 
heaven's success. Not grammar for grammar's 
sake, but truth for truth's. So it was that he did 
not pause till he had run down the function of 
oTi and the enclitic Se — all the while paralyzed 
from the waist down. And thus, by undaunted en- 
deavor to the end, he earned a place upon earth's 
topmost peak where play the great forces of the 
heavens. The multitude live in the lowland. 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 253 

This man decided not to Live but Know — 

Bury this man there ? 
Here — here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form. 

Lightnings are loosened, 
Stars come and go ! Let joy break with the storm. 

Peace let the dew send ! 
Lofty designs must close in like effects: 

Loftily lying, 
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects. 

Living and dying. 

First learn to live; time enough to live after 
learning how. — This, the poem means to suggest, 
was the undaunted spirit of learning shortly after 
its revival in Europe; and there is probably no 
successful scholar who will object to the imputa- 
tion that it is his own. 



CLEON 

Faith without Christ 

Gleon is a poet who, from the seventeen isles 
of Greece that lie sprinkled like lilies in the sea, 
addresses an answering letter to one just received 
from Protus the king. The royal message has been 
brought by a galley, which, while Cleon is in the 
act of writing a reply, is unlading its cargo of rich 
gifts, piling them high in the court of his abode. 
Among the gifts is a group of slaves, white and 
black. From among them comes forward a "white 
she-slave," clad in "crocus- vest woven of sea- 
wools," and holds extended another gift, a 
"strainer and a cup," which the king's lip had 
touched in salute to Cleon before the cargo sailed. 

Protus, so the letter reads, has heard of Cleon's 
far-going fame not only as poet but as painter, 
sculptor, and musician; and he writes to commend 
and reward, and to win counsel on various matters 
of conjecture touching happiness, the soul, and the 
future state after death. These inquiries have been 
prompted both by Cleon's fame and by the growing 
repute of one called Paulus, a barbarian Jew, — 
the same Paul who, on Mars' Hill, himself had 
preached the Christ, making mention of such as 
Cleon in the memorable phrase — "As certain also 
of your own poets have said." 

The other questions of Protus's letter concern, 
first, Cleon's wonderful achievements: An epos 



CLEON ^55 

graven on a hundred plates of gold; a little chant 
which fishermen sing; a Poecile covered with sto- 
ried paintings; three philosophical dissertations on 
the soul; and certain notable inventions in music. 
Protus continues with a self-depreciative com- 
parison of his own worth with that of Cleon. The 
king, however powerful now, will be forgotten and 
supplanted by his heir; while Cleon will continue 
to live, an immortal influence in the memories of 
men. This is success. Dost thou, Cleon, asks the 
king, fear death less with success in thy right hand? 
The letter closes with an inquiry concerning a new 
Jewish philosophy as set forth by Paulus and 
Christus, upon which Cleon finally and decisively 
comments, 

Their doctrine could be held by no sane man. 

This is Cleon's opportunity for much fine philos- 
ophizing on the worth of the poet's calling, and 
his chances for happiness. Cleon's argument is : 

The poets of a later day are of a greater mind 
than their forerunners, since they are more com- 
posite in grasp and scope of intelligence. Theirs is 
the ambition of viewing life, not point by point as 
their predecessors have done, but as a great whole; 
and with this end in view, they find those who 
have gone before supplementing instead of succes- 
sively effacing one another. The new worth is not 
superimposed upon the old, blotting it out; rather is 
each value laid side by side with all the others, and 
so all are combined to form a perfect scheme; as, in 
a mosaic pavement, rhomb and lozenge and trape- 
zoid are by the artist joined on a level to make a 



«56 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

picture. The meaning of life, which it is the poet's 
function to explore, grows as man grows. Relative 
and suited to that is the prophecy of each artist 
and poet. Those divine men of old time. Homer, 
Terpander, Phidias, are each greatest at his own 
point, and so far greater than Cleon; but Cleon, 
running these into one soul, has distilled their 
individual excellences into one; and not in vain, 
any more than is the cultivated flower inferior to, 
though smaller than, the wild one from which it was 
evolved. The relative worth of individual life may 
be symboled by a little water which at a given 
moment touches a point of the sphere that holds it, 
and, the sphere being turned, may touch all points 
successively; but life's absolute value is symboled 
by the air which, filling the sphere, touches it at all 
points simultaneously. 

Then, to answer another of Protus's questions, 
Cleon continues: Is the poet so attaining the "very 
crown and proper end of life" to be accounted 
greater than Protus, or any king? In other words, 
is the philosopher on all accounts greater, more se- 
renely able to face death, than the man of affairs.^ 
Is the knower and thinker more able than the doer 
to possess and enjoy? Protus thinks so; for, says 
he, life stays in the poems, and men will sing 
them. Posterity will study pictures, whereas the 
statue that commemorates a king's greatness will 
be dragged down by the next generation. To which 
Cleon replies: Admiration grows as knowledge 
grows; imperfection means perfection hid. Viewing 
the long line of evolution culminating in the devel- 
opment of man, one rightly says that man's gift of 



CLEON 957 

consciousness, of knowledge of himself, of intro- 
spection and self-supervision, is his crown and dis- 
tinction over the brute. But does this quality fit 
him for happiness? The soul climbs to its high 
watch-tower of capability and cries out exulting in 
the joy the world around seems meant to minister. 
But does it so minister .f^ The soul sees and craves 
all, but by so much as it has spent itself in the 
effort to know what there is to enjoy, it has dimin- 
ished its physical recipiency of enjoyment. 

And so a man can use but a man's joy 
While he sees God's. . . . 
Most progress is most failure. 

What if the poem and the painting live for men in 
the after-time? The knowing bow to live and the 
showing how are not the same as the actual liv- 
ing. Is the sculptor who carves the young Phoebus 
therefore young? Is the old singer of love odes 
therefore beloved? Can he who knows imagina- 
tively the joys of kingship therefore rule? Nay; the 
deadly fate of him who knows is daily to have his 
sense of joy grow more acute, his soul more en- 
larged and keen; daily to feel his hand shake, and 
the heavy years increase; and, at last, to see the 
consummation slipping past when he knows most 
and least enjoys, and men shall mouth the poet's 
odes while he lies sleeping in his urn. This is so 
horrible a thought that only some future state, 
unlimited in capacity for joy, can satisfy man's 
joy-hunger here. 

But no! 
Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas. 
He must have done so, were it possible ! 



258 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Wherefore it might be reasonably said, — 

Let progress end at once, — man make no step 
Beyond the natural man, the better beast. 

The letter ends with a skeptical report on the 
philosophy of Paul — his message of Christ — 
which, if accepted, had given a positive instead of a 
negative turn to Cleon's argument for a future 
state and for the attainment of the joy the philos- 
opher learns of here but cannot have. 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY 

Faith and Doubt 

Bishop Blougram and Gigadibs, his guest, hav- 
ing dined sumptuously, have pushed back their 
chairs from the table to talk, and are now drinking 
no less sumptuously than they dined, from two 
jugs well iced. It is the time when Goethe, Buon- 
aparte, and Count d'Orsay were living realities in 
the memories of men; when the London "Times" 
and "Blackwood's Magazine" enjoyed the vogue 
of oracles; when Dickens had set forth his sketches 
of slum life; when Balzac's fifty volumes were still 
new; when writing for reviews in Dublin and New 
York first led the reviewer's aspiration to meas- 
urable returns. Gigadibs is a representative of 
" Blackwood's," and as such has come to seek an 
interview with the Bishop. 

The Bishop is a soft-handed sensualist of the 
Romish church, not many degrees removed in 
station from the Pope himself. His ambition for 
place and power has been satisfied through no im- 
moderate exercise of intellect and learning, it is 
true, but by virtue of his tact in letting external 
forces work for him. It is with oily satisfaction 
that he contemplates his worldly circumstance: his 
bishop's outfit; his taste in books, music, and art — 
Greek busts, Venetian paintings; his ring for a 
Duke and the million to kiss; the ten mules to his 
carriage for crossing St. Gothard, — the carriage 



260 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

with a bed slung inside; his articles on music, po- 
etry, the fictile vase found at Albano, chess, Anac- 
reon's Greek; in a word, his style and title of 
Bishop in countries where — 

(the deuce knows not what 
It 's changed to by our novel hierarchy). 

So much for Blougram, his state and circumstances, 
as disclosed in half-sincere, self-gratulatory con- 
fidence to Gigadibs. 

Gigadibs, on his part, is a person of no outward 
circumstance or show, but a literary adventurer of 
thirty years of age, writing statedly for " Black- 
wood's Magazine"; and his literary best has been 
a lively lightsome article in the style of the true 
Dickens on "The Slum and Cellar, or Whitechapel 
Life Limned after Dark. " A rough and ready man 
is Gigadibs — a man who writes apace, reads some- 
what seldomer, thinks perhaps even less; believes 
he sees two points in Hamlet's soul unseized by the 
Germans yet; is an unbeliever, a would-be cham- 
pion of honest doubt; and an advocate of the simple 
life. This is Gigadibs. Yet, with all his accom- 
plishments, Gigadibs can scarcely be styled a match 
in dialectic for Blougram, having besides at this time 
the disadvantage of being guest — the obligation, 
that is, of subduing himself to the mood of his host. 
Moreover, a subconscious awe, a vague but discon- 
certing timidity springing from secret admiration 
of Blougram and his worldly rank, stifles his asser- 
tiveness, his ardor of retort in the argument which 
ensues. While the great Bishop rolls him out "a 
mind long crumpled," till " creased consciousness" 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY 261 

lies smooth, the literary aspirant plays absently 
with spoons, explores his plate's design, and ranges 
the olive stones about its edge. Though awed by 
Blougram's worldly trapping and circumstance, 
Gigadibs professes contempt for it; at the same 
time he is proud of the society of so great a man, 
and elated (so charges the Bishop) at the capital 
material the Bishop's confession will make for an 
article on, say, "Blougram, or The Eccentric Con- 
fidence," or "The Outward-bound." 

The Bishop's talk is an apology — a justification 
and defense of his position in the eyes of Gigadibs, 
who knows him by report a believer, learned, 
widely read: decisive in his faith, conclusive and 
positive in the terms thereof. This is the Bishop's 
ostensible profession; he makes it before the world 
for the world's good things and for the world's 
guarantee that he may live to the limit of his bent. 
At the same time, he is an unbeliever, but relatively 
so, not decisive in his unbelief, not conclusive 
and positive in the terms thereof. Certainly this 
anomaly needs justification and apology; and his 
defense has at least the semblance of cleverness to 
Gigadibs; though, as the sequel will show, it is 
neither conclusive nor decisive in the sense Blou- 
gram intends. 

Says the Bishop : — You despise me, I know. 
You would not be I. You abjure my ideal of life; 
prefer to speak your mind at all times, to be wholly 
and solely yourself — imperial, plain, and true. 
An unbelieving, play-acting Pope whom Death may 
meet unawares, touch on the sleeve familiarly and 
ask what his baubles mean, would not do, you say. 



262 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Gigadibs. — Yes. No pasteboard crown, sham 
orb and tinsel's dart for me. I would be all; not 
merely much, but all, or nothing. And so far in our 
argument I beat you, sir. 

Bishop. — No, friend, you do not beat. See my 
hand! The common problem, yours and mine, 
believing or not, is first not to find what should be, 
provided it could be, but to find what may be, and 
to live up to our means of making it so. We live in 
Rome or London, not in Fool's-paradise. Suppose 
a simile: We're on the ocean, let us say for a six 
month's voyage. That's life. Each has his cabin 
to live in and make the most of. You bring your 
landsman's list of furniture: an Indian screen, a 
pianoforte, Balzac's novels (fifty volumes), a shelf 
full of little Greek books, slabbed Parma marble 
for your bath, Correggio's Jerome (marvelous 
painting). Protests the captain, "Six feet square! 
If you won't understand what six feet mean, com- 
pute and purchase stores accordingly." What 
then.^ In pique because your Jerome, frame and 
all, your pianoforte and bath are overhauled, you 
come unprovided. But you've proved your artistic 
nature, while sympathizers see you off. And what 
of me? Behold my bishop's outfit! Better be prac- 
tical; better be a bishop. 

Gigadibs. — I don't believe — I can't believe — 
in any revelation called divine, so long as it fails in 
the system necessary to a science. Overhaul theol- 
ogy, I say. Make it a real science; otherwise it loses 
all authority for me. 

Bishop. — These are your difficulties .^^ I, too, 
have difficulties; and, to meet you on common 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY 263 

ground, Overboard with them, I'll say. Now, 
what's the gain? Shall both of us be unbelievers, 
determinately fixed to-day, to-morrow, and forever 
in our faith of no-faith? Not so! Just when we 
think we 're safest comes a fancy from some flower, 
a sunset, a death, to rap at and enter our soul with 
whisper of the grand Perhaps, — "The Way, the 
Truth, the Life." 

Take another simile. — There lies a way over 
the mountain called life. Standing thereon, one 
sees it terminate, lead no whither; indeed, no road 
at all. The viewpoint's the thing. On the way we 
see nothing ahead. From the desert on either side, 
up goes the line — plain from base to brow. 
What's a break or two? The most consummate 
of contrivances to train man's eye; to teach him 
what faith is. You, Gigadibs, view a life of doubt 
diversified by faith; I, Blougram, see a life of 
faith diversified by doubt. Better be a bishop, 
Gigadibs. 

Besides, belief or unbelief determines the be- 
ginning, determines life's whole course. The world, 
since neither you nor I have made it, I mean to 
take as it is; and, as for me, positive belief bears 
me fruit in power, peace, pleasantness, and length 
of days. 

Gigadibs. — And unbelief does as much for me. 

Bishop. — Does it? Let us see. Faith is my wak- 
ing life; night is the time for sleep and dreams, tc 
get done with (the sooner the better). Since you 
prize midnight and its doubts, bed is the place for 
you at all times. The common-sense o' the world is 
right: Doubt-ridden is bed-ridden. The good 



264 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

things of the world are mine with faith. Better be 
a bishop, Gigadibs. 

Then, too, life's a game. The player dare not 
be indifferent, seeing what the stake is — riches, 
honor, pleasure, work, repose. Be your choice what 
it will, the world, which is judge, demands that it 
be consistent. As in love, so in life. A man should 
wed the woman he loves most, for he cannot wed 
twice. He cannot wed twice, nor twice lose his 
soul. As for me, my choice is the form of Christian 
faith I happened to be born in. With tact I let 
external forces work for me and make my life an 
ease and joy and pride; afford my power its scope, 
my will its chance to dominate; gaining mankind's 
respect, obedience, and the love that 's born of fear. 

Gigadibs. — So far your choice is a success. But 
were you made of better elements, with nobler in- 
stincts, purer tastes — 't would be a failure. 

Bishop. — Friend, we speak of what is, not of 
what might be. Grant I am a beast, my business is 
not to remake myself, but to make the absolute 
best of what God made; if He have made of me a 
pig in a stye, why then my business clearly is to see 
that the hutch should rustle with sufficient straw. 

Gigadibs. — But, as I said, in the life you choose 
to lead there is not sufficient provision for the 
nobler instincts, and ... 

Bishop. — Ah, is n't there? By whose estima- 
tion, pray.f^ Suppose we allow your premise that 
one wise man's verdict outweighs all the fools'; 
and that to win the plaudits of a dozen men of 
sense is better than to pine among my million 
imbeciles. Friend, here is my answer: Your prime 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY 265 

men are men still, only they confuse themselves. 
Their interest is on the dangerous side of things; 
in, let us say, the honest thief, the tender mur- 
derer, the superstitious atheist, the demirep that 
loves and saves her soul in new French books; in 
the lad o'erstric^ing a chimney-stack. The danger 
of a fall is the measure of your prime men's inter- 
est. They eye only the extremes. And I? Why, 
pray, should I be fool or knave, believer or unbe- 
liever, while a world of values lies between .f^ Then 
why may not a superior man believe and disbe- 
lieve as well.^ Is not that, too, keeping an equilib- 
rium at a dizzy height, walking the line, courting 
danger .f^ So there you are! 

Gigadibs. — However much these prime men 
may admire you, I don't. 

Bishop. — Well then, what is your ideal? Pre- 
sent your own perfection. Napoleon.? What, in the 
first place, of his tastes .^^ And, in the second place, 
of his star, his crazy trust .^^ Could Napoleon be 
Napoleon and yet disbelieve — a conscious quack 
blowing millions up, their bowels writhing in be- 
wildering entanglement, and he — Napoleon — 
conscious all along of judgment, of a life to come? 
No, better be a bishop and dine, sleep, read, and 
chat in quiet, as I like ! 

Gigadibs. — Take another case. Take Shake- 
speare. 

Bishop. — Shakespeare? I or he? Which of us 
realizes most? Much he imagined, that we may 
allow. But how much did he possess? Supposing 
he despised the world, your argument were good. 
But did he? What of his Stratford house, his coat 



266 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

of arms, successful dealings in grain and wool? All 
his imagined world, brave as it is, cannot weigh 
with my real one, gross though you make it. On 
the mere supposition, then, that this life 's all, who 
wins the game — Shakespeare or Elougram? No, 
enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat, be it Napo- 
leon's or Shakespeare's or Blougram's. Shake- 
speare could imagine a bishop; and so far so good; 
but could he be one? And I? I receive incense in 
my nose, and style myself the cousin of Queen 
Bess. Paint a fire, it will not therefore burn. 

Gigadibs. — But is success a flare? Does the 
dream count for everything? Suppose the dream 
be false. 

Bishop. — Success, my friend, is a flare, as the 
world counts. Take Luther. There's a life to 
lead, incomparably better than my own. His work, 
he said, was to reclaim God's earth for God. And 
yet he flared out in a great conflagration — his 
failure proved by the advent of Strauss, who, 
taken all in all, makes no fire any more than ice 
does. Add, too, the plaguey hundredth chance that 
Strauss may be wrong, and where are we, suppos- 
ing death a little alters things? 

Gigadibs. — Give me whole faith or none. What 
is the good of vacillating betwixt Paul and Strauss? 
What the good of cool indifference? How is that 
better than frank unbelief? The risk is the same in 
either case. 

Bishop. — Is it? The difference between blank 
doubt and doubt plus enthusiasm is that the latter 
has a life to show in this world, while the other has 
nothing. If you desire faith, then you've faith 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY 267 

enough. "What think ye of Christ?" is the im- 
portant question; and not, "What think ye of the 
proof of his existence?" Has Christianity your 
vote to be Christianity if it can? If so, you have 
faith enough. 

Gigadibs. — I would have pure faith or none. 

Bishop. — Pure faith? Impossible. It sears too 
much; it was not meant to be borne. It would 
wither up the brain and blind the eye. But the 
brain has a covering for a shield; the eye a lid: so 
faith has unf aith for a defense and good has evil for 
a protection. "With me faith means perpetual 
unbelief kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's 
foot, who stands calm just because he feels it 
writhe." With me a pinch of snuff makes my nose 
aware of peace by itching fits. Let doubt occasion 
still more faith. 

Gigadibs. — But the pure faith of the Middle 
Age — 

Bishop. — Was no better than Noodledom, with 
its souls more blank than a decanter's knob; with 
its pillage, lying, killing, robbing, fornicating like 
beasts full in belief's face. No; better for the soul 
to grow and never leave growing. The sum of all 
is, my doubt is great, my faith's still greater; then 
my faith's enough. 

Gigadibs. — Why not purify your faith? Why 
not prune it of its excrescences? 

Bishop. — Because to such a process I discern 
no end. The last cut will be Fichte's clever cut at 
God himself. No; keep faith whole; respect the 
creature-comforts; suit your luggage to the cabin's 
size; live for this world now to make the next life 



268 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

more intense. Listen to a dream I had lately: A 
traveler from North to South ever living in ad- 
vance of his time and place, sheds fur in Russia, for 
what's its use in France? scorns flannel in France, 
since where 's the need of it in Spain? and last, 
spurns his skin as a superfluity in Timbuctoo. 
When was the fool at ease? 

Gigadibs. — No, it 's better, if we doubt, to act 
up to our truth perceived, however feebly. 

Bishop. — Do so, then ! Act away. Act on the 
basis of your natural religion, and we'll see where 
you'll land. Lie, kill, thieve, fornicate to the end 
of your bent. Can you? 

Gigadibs. — - Instinct, I should say, would inter- 
fere. 

Bishop. — Ah, instinct! There I have you. 
And why should not I live up to my instinct, who 
must have a God before I can be aught, do aught, 
and a relation from that God to me? I live my life 
here; yours you dare not live. 

Gigadibs. — You have misrepresented my case 
and disfigured it. The simple life for me ! 

Bishop. — Your simple life, in the last analysis, 
means self-abnegation; which, if you like it best, is 
best on all accounts; and there you beat me. But 
do you like it best? 

Stood you confessed of those exceptional 

And privileged great natures that dwarf mine — 

A zealot with a mad ideal in reach, 

A poet just about to print his ode, 

A statesman with a scheme to stop this war. 

An artist whose religion is his art — 

I should have nothing to object: such men 

Carry the fire, all things grow warm to them. 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY 269 

They beat me. But you — you 're just as little as I 
am. 

Gigadibs quietly takes his leave. But, instead 
of writing for " Blackwood's" the startling account 
of an unbelieving bishop's confession under the 
caption, "The Outward-bound," he buys a stock, 
not of cabin-furniture, but of settler's implements 
and starts for Australia. He has beaten after all. 
The simple life is the best, and in time he will 
prove it so. 

The "Apology" is a dramatic monologue; that 
is, it presents but one side — the Bishop's — of its 
dialogue; and, as the purpose of the dramatic ele- 
ment in a dramatic monologue is to afford the 
greatest possible play of emotion in the reaction of 
one or more characters upon situations and inci- 
dents, it would seem at first that the "Apology," 
with its single situation of a dinner at which two 
views of conduct are brought into conflict, with the 
result of changing the course of Gigadibs's life, 
fails of its purpose; yet there is surprise enough in 
the Bishop's disclosures, and suspense enough in 
the portrayal of their effect on Gigadibs. The form 
of the poem thus justifies itself, its emotional ap- 
peal consisting in this conflict of opinion. 

For the sake of clearness, the principles which 
are opposed to each other will be reviewed. 

The Bishop's thesis is, that, since truth is rela- 
tive and the business of life is an immensely 
practical thing, it is not only folly but an impossi- 
bility to live up to an absolute standard of religion; 
that, consequently, a union of unbelief and faith 



270 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

in the same person is not only a possible but the 
most practical condition. So long as faith has the 
mastery, unfaith is a positive good — an adjunct to 
faith and coadjutor with it, a sustainer of faith and 
a valid proof thereof: just as evil proves good; just 
as itching fits prove the desirability of peace for 
the inside-nose. A corollary to the relative status 
of truth and therefore of faith is the folly of antici- 
pating one's time and place in the matter of truth 
and faith. Man, as John says in "A Death in 
the Desert," is spoon-fed with truth. A Bishop's 
worldly success would seem to show the validity of 
his opportunist philosophy when squared, according 
to Gigadibs's demands, by a revelation made con- 
clusive and decisive in its terms; which is to say, 
one as positive and compelling as a science. 

So much is plain regarding Blougram. Quite the 
contrary, however, is just as plain concerning 
Gigadibs. His demand is for absolute belief, with- 
out temporizing with expediency and the vitiating 
conditions of here and now. He abjures any form 
of sham and hypocrisy masquerading in the selfish 
and ease-loving guise of practical adaptation of 
means to ends. Give me pure, unadulterated faith, 
cries Gigadibs, and I will act up to it. And on the 
Bishop's final admission that while that is possible 
on the part of the zealot, it means, nevertheless, a 
form of self-abnegation of which Gigadibs is as 
incapable as he; and on his further admission that 
the zealot incomparably beats him — the Bishop 
— in his own game of life, in which he still, as comr 
pared to Gigadibs, stoutly maintains his superior- 
ity, Gigadibs packs up his belongings and starts for 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY 271 

a settler's life in Australia, determined consistently 
to live up to his standards of natural religion, 
unhampered by the relative and the expedient. 

As between these two, what is the reader's con- 
clusion? Whom does the poet wish him to choose? 
A plausible answer is, Neither, since it is not certain 
with whom Browning's sympathies lay. His inten- 
tion was merely to portray these two types of char- 
acter so far as he understood them — and there the 
matter ends. Browning was neither doctrinaire nor 
controversialist, but an observer, a poet, able like 
Shakespeare to create a bishop but not to be one, 
and so far content. 

The doctrinaire and controversialist among his 
readers, however, — he who speaks in positive 
terms, — will doubtless make out a different case; 
to wit: Browning's purpose is the exaltation of 
Blougram, for Blougram is the chief disputant and 
victorious in argument; he is the aggressor; he 
is meant to engage our sympathies; and his postu- 
lates of the relativity of truth, the necessity of ex- 
pediency and opportunism, are voiced time and 
again by others of Browning's dramatic creations. 
Besides, is he not known from sources other than 
his own writings to have been a man of the world 
no less than a poet? 



MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM" 

Imposture and Faith 

Sludge is the name of a spiritualistic medium 
whose business one day takes him to Boston. As a 
medium he has succeeded in attracting much atten- 
tion; and among those whom he counts his admir- 
ers are persons of all sorts and occupations — some, 
according to Sludge's own appraisement of them, 
being skeptics, but the greater number curiosity- 
seeking dupes. Among his patrons are found also 
such unlikely persons as the philosopher and meta- 
physician, the hard-headed judge and the immod- 
est woman, the literary dilettante and the social- 
science fribble; and Sludge's exploitation of these 
gullible folk has afforded him a very plentiful har- 
vest. 

But it happens one day that Sludge makes a fatal 
mistake with one Hiram H. Horsefall, an enthusi- 
astic and profitable customer. Horsefall, desirous 
of establishing communications with his deceased 
mother, has approached the medium to that end, 
inviting him to his fine mansion, and plying him 
there with lavish presents of jewelry and money and 
rich champagne dinners as a sign of gratitude and 
an eagerness to know more. A number of success- 
ful seances have been conducted at the Horsefall 
mansion; and that the case would be sufficiently 
remunerative to Sludge was shown, aside from 
the champagne and the presents, by the opulence of 



MR. SLUDGE, THE MEDIUM 273 

the mansion's appointments. But one day Sludge 
imbibes too freely, and, perpetrating the fatal mis- 
take, is furiously attacked by the disillusioned 
Horsefall. The medium, making the best of a bad 
situation, summons to his defense his oiliest manner 
and most persuasive arguments. His defense, 
briefly stated, is this : — 

Sludge's ability to communicate with the spirit- 
world is an established fact, and it is true too that 
all spirits are not only willing but very eager to 
respond to his summons, imperfect man though he 
be, since, by reason of his temperamental fitness, 
he is one of the very few persons through whom 
they can communicate with this world. Among 
those who have come at his call are Franklin, Tom 
Paine, Bacon, Johnson, Wesley, Barnum, Beethoven, 
Saul and Jonathan, Pompey and Caesar, Milton, 
Locke, Homer, Asaph, Shakespeare, and Mary 
Queen of Scots. They, one and all, the celebrated 
with the obscure, flock to the medium as eager to 
learn if all is well with their sons and successors in 
the old home on earth as is the outside world crowd- 
ing to a prison window to see how the prisoners fare 
within. 

Yes, it is true that Sludge operates by means of 
so-called spirit-rappings, table-tippings, spirit-writ- 
ing in sympathetic ink, odic lights from phosphor- 
matches, tricks with glass balls, dim shapes con- 
jured up in a darkened room hung with curtains; 
but this is the only means of communication and 
the only authentic spirit language. Why should 
Horsefall doubt it? Why start up in such a fury of 
resentment, clutching Sludge by the windpipe and 



274 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

all but choking the life out of him? Why this talk 
of exposure in Greeley's newspaper? Exposure is the 
game, is it? Well, there may be things to expose 
on Horsefall's side as well. That will serve admir- 
ably to cool his execrable temper and make him 
listen. Horsefall does well to listen now and hand 
over the money. The sixty "V-notes" will do, if 
he will promise to keep quiet about the cheating 
until, at least. Sludge has boarded the next steamer 
for England. 

Sludge's plea for exculpation is a long and ingen- 
ious one, extending from this particular instance of 
crookedness in which he has just been detected to 
chicanery and fraud in general. There is cheating 
everywhere, he says: not only in spiritual seances, 
but in the supposedly more sacred realms of litera- 
ture, history, philosophy, and religion. However, 
disappointment crowning his efforts to win rein- 
statement in Horsefall's affections, he creeps off 
sullenly to bed with half-muttered curses and 
threats to burn Horsefall's house down, or get even 
by starting a scandal to the effect that Horsefall 
had hastened his succession to the family estate by 
murdering his old mother. 

A more extended account of Sludge's argument is 
the following : Men are conceited prigs, who, though 
wary* enough when money is concerned, are steeped 
in credulity in other matters, being especially prone 
to all kinds of gullibility with respect to spirits and 
things spiritual. In their conceit and credulity, men 
invite being duped, swallowing as they do, bait and 
hook, anything in print purporting to be philosophy ; 
and so, when they 're caught, it 's no one's fault but 



MR. SLUDGE, THE MEDIUM 275 

theirs. Of course, mediums are imperfect, any im- 
perfection or vulgarity in the medium being due 
to the nervous shock and the great difficulty of 
dealing with the spirit- world. So men say. And 
furthermore, men pounce upon a medium as upon 
a prize, or a medal dug up, or the first edition of a 
book discovered, claiming the credit of a grand dis- 
covery, giving it their name, and calling it their 
own. It is thus that men encourage lying and cheat- 
ing, pretending all the time to look askance at it; 
and it is thus that, with their cosseting and coddling, 
they encourage dishonesty in a medium. And how 
do they support the occasional skeptic among them 
who claims to have exploded the humbug.'^ Simply 
by outcrowing him until he stands abashed, and 
doubt in him succumbs. Under these favorable cir- 
cumstances imposition naturally multiplies. \Miat 
else could be expected.'^ What else — when women, 
lending a hand, feast and lionize your impostor? 
As for lying and imposition, truly there's exactly 
as much of it as the world invites. 

Where may one stop? Nowhere! The cheating 's nursed 
Out of the lying. 

The supply of wonders is manufactured to suit 
the demand ; and a wonder always finds a ready de- 
fense among the multitude, so that, when there 
does, at length, arise a cry of "cheating," the sym- 
pathizers retort that it was only a mistake in the 
performance. As for sleight of hand, they declare, 
why there is no more of that in blowing glass or in 
tossing biscuits flat into an oven than in spirit rap- 
ping. Suppose the demurring person be of the hard- 



276 STORIES FROM BROWNmG 

headed Judge Humgruffin type. Silence ensues for 
a little; for of all the persons to expose a fraud, your 
Judge Humgruffin is the ablest. Humgruffin tries 
his best and — fails. What happens then? Vic- 
tory, and victory redoubled; for if Humgruffin fail 
at exploding a fake, how can Sludge succeed at one? 
Ergo, say the credulous. Sludge is the real thing. 

There comes another test. A mother wishes to 
speak to her departed child; and the medium star- 
tles her with the occult knowledge that the infant 
died at six and rode a rocking-horse. Witness the 
mother's blank expression, little suspecting the 
nurse who supplied the information. Yes, there are 
ways known to Sludgedom of bringing the wariest 
to their knees, and the hardest-headed among the 
Humgruffins. You call Sludge a cheat? Just as 
well call the cobbler who kept pegging away with 
nose to lapstone a cheat. Yet he was neither cob- 
bler nor cheat. But 

his trade was, throwing thus 
His sense out like an ant-eater's tongue; 

and every Sunday he touched his pay and took his 
praise — a government-spy ! Does Sludge do the 
impossible and learn the unknowable? Well, if so, 
it is only by such simple means as these. Does 
Sludge cheat? Why, yes; but no more than is to be 
expected. He has cheated Horsefall — he admits 
it — and, what is more, courts exposure; for, sup- 
pose Sludge did confess, would the people believe 
him? His partisans and defenders would but say 
that under provocation he might cheat the unwary 
for the mere sport of the game; — but as for us. 



MR. SLUDGE, THE MEDIUM 277 

he would n't try to cheat us for the simple reason 
that he knows we 're too sharp for him. He may be 
a worthless character — true : that 's his nature : 
all mediums are worthless, and by virtue of their 
worthlessness all the more efficient. 

Bless your soul, 
'T is these hysteric, hybrid half-and-halfs. 
Equivocal, worthless vermin yield the fire! 

These are the gulls whom Sludge deals with; and, 
seeing who they are, why, pray, should Sludge 
waste any gratitude on them? They deserve to be 
fooled — for their selfishness and blind trust in 
their own acuteness, for one thing; and, for another 
thing, for being so debauched with self-deception 
as to ascribe any supposed imposture by a medium 
to his natural imperfection of character rather than 
to any intentional duplicity. All men are imperfect, 
and mediums are no exceptions; moreover, the world 
must be satisfied with such mediums as are suscep- 
tible to spirit influence. So an occasional slip is to 
be expected as evidence of the medium's mere hu- 
manity. 

And that, you say, is so much the more reason 
for being grateful.? Grateful for being used as a 
showman's ape? Grateful to the superior super- 
intending sort for using Sludge to sweep truth from 
the skies with a broom? No, the gullible shall be 
gulled — men and women alike; for, as regards the 
women, they deserve it even more than the men, 
because, though ordinarily so sensitive as to faint 
when a male hand squeezes theirs, your ladies have 
no scruples whatever to dally with such as Sludge, 



278 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

excusing themselves on the ground that Sludge is 
but a medium. In fact, they will condone any im- 
propriety with the explanation that in the next 
world values are reversed, as, for example, in a pic- 
ture of nude nymphs conversing unblushingly with 
a passing cavalier on a populous street. Gratitude 
to them.f^ No need to worry on that score; for the 
ladies come to feed their self-conceit, and to find 
one more novelty to cackle over. When lambs 
come for wool and go home shorn, where 's the 
harm done? From such as they, a medium, impostor 
or no impostor, is surely worthy of his hire. 

Another side to the business — its sacrilege, its 
sinfulness.'^ On that score, too, Horsefall may rest 
easy; for the matter as it stands is decidedly a help 
instead of a hindrance to religion: does not your 
Sludge with mysteries comparable to those of Saint 
Paul and Swedenborg, lay your crass atheist sprawl- 
ing on his back.? The relation of your medium to 
religion has been altogether misunderstood; but this 
once seen in its true light, Sludge will be awarded 
the credit he deserves. For is it not Sludge's part 
to join in the general cause against the common 
enemy? Down with the skeptics everywhere! They 
are liars all, and the best means of baffling them are 
lies. It takes a lie to kill a lie. Then, consider the 
moral use there is in a lie; the use, that is, which a 
harlot subserves in evoking belief in purity by ex- 
posing the skeleton beneath the flesh — a shorter 
way of teaching that men have souls than by citing 
old philosophies. Moreover, there's a real love of 
lies among liars as of sugar-plums among girls. The 
liking for both is universal; and a lie once indulged 



MR. SLUDGE, THE MEDIUM 279 

vitiates the best of faith, and vitiates it completely. 
All in the quagmire of falsehood have had due warn- 
ing, to which they pay not the slightest heed before 
they venture, and wallow in the slough. Then hear 
the fools reason : — 

In so many tales 
Must be some truth, truth though a pin-point big. 
Yet some: a single man's deceived, perhaps — 
Hardly a thousand: to suppose one cheat 
Can gull all these were more miraculous far 
Than aught we should confess a miracle. 

Has one no respect for the authorities who support 
spiritualism, and none for that medium of limpid 
nature and spotless honor .^^ 

Such are Sludge's supporters. Yet he finds no 
lack of them from a more unexpected source; from 
a class of men, that is to say, who are wholly emas- 
culated; who in cold blood and perfect safety are 
able to dally with superstitions — your out-and- 
out skeptics, unbelievers as to anything and every- 
thing, seekers merely of the latest sensation. These, 
the self -proclaimed champions of truth, fair-play, 
and disinterested investigation, set up your Sludge 
for a public spectacle, proclaim him as a thing to 
experiment with, discuss and cant about. Another 
sort of enthusiasts, still more contemptible, are 
your literary folk, who sift a dung-heap to gain a 
pearl and roll in the slime of the slough for the 
book's sake and the public stare. But the most 
detestable class of all is that of your sociological 
fribble 

Who wants a doctrine for a chopping-block 
To try the edge of his faculty upon. 



280 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

These, then, are Sludge's patrons. And Shidge is 
asked to show them gratitude? Perhaps, on mature 
dehberation, your Sludge might give them as much 
as a prostitute feels for a greenhorn or a bully. 

There is another aspect to the case.^ Really.^ 
What about Sludge and Sludge's God.f^ Is that the 
question.? Oh, as to that it must be said that, in the 
last analysis, there's a substratum of truth in 
spiritualism, tricks or no tricks. There is sl spirit- 
world; there's no denying that. With so much con- 
ceded, the next question is: What may be the mode 
of intercourse between this world and that.^^ Con- 
sider what the Bible says, what history says. 

Since Samuel's ghost appeared to Saul, of course 
My brother's spirit may appear to me. 

It is admitted, to be sure, that such things have 
been, and yet it is urged that it 's best to hold belief 
in abeyance until more satisfying proof be forth- 
coming. Meanwhile, one may reach a sort of 
compromise by acknowledging some means of com- 
munication with that other world, now, as there was 
in Saul's time — not the old way, to be sure, but a 
way suitable to new and changed conditions. And 
this is not for all men to employ, any more than it is 
for all men to paint pictures or even to see all the 
colors in the rainbow. Some are born color-blind. 
And most are born with lack of the sensitiveness 
needful if one would serve as a medium. Though 
the times may have changed and the modern world 
be regarded as new, yet the laws by which the mod- 
ern world is operated are the same as of old; though 
in passing from infancy to manhood one may grow 



MR. SLUDGE, THE MEDIUM 281 

away from one's first stock of Bible lore, the truth 
of the Bible is still the same; though disillusionment 
may come with regard to Santa Claus and fairies, 
the truth of the real faith can suffer no change. It is 
so with the whole spirit world; for, all illusions gone, 
there remains as much of the supernatural as ever. 

What unseen agency outside the world 
Prompted its puppets to do this and that? 

Just so I reason, in sober earnest still 
About the greater god-sends, what you call 
The serious gains and losses of my Hfe. 

Moreover, Sludge must recognize that in this 
world he is a reality and as such is put to the neces- 
sity of looking out for himself. This being the case, 
the use of things is to serve his purpose as a player 
in the show of life. For life is a show — a spectacle 
— in which signs and wonders abound. Stars, for 
instance, are set to show when sheep should be 
sheared, corn sowed, trees pruned; and Charles's 
Wain seen at midnight signifies even so seemingly 
trivial a thing as that the time has come to have 
one's hair cut. But what constitutes triviality .^^ Is 
man too insignificant for providential care, even the 
slightest .f^ Search history for instances. Take the 
common example of a handkerchief lost and a 
wreck thereby escaped. Though hundreds of others 
not so favored, and Boston to boot, had gone down 
in the disaster, the sign of the lost handkerchief was 
yet a special providence for Sludge. Why then 
should Sludge scorn to be on the alert for such signs? 
On the contrary, he chooses to look for them, and 
look carefully, 



STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Into each hour with its infinitude 
Of influence at work to profit Sludge; 



chooses 



To spy a providence in the fire's going out. 
The kettle 's boiling, the dime's sticking fast. 

Is this unreasonable? For, "if nothing guards and 
guides us Httle men," what can be the need of Prov- 
idence? What, too, can be the need of gratitude to 
Providence if men are not taken into partnership 
with a benevolent Providence? On what other 
basis can men be true beneficiaries of Providence? 
Is it more of a miracle that out of the many millions 
of worlds, the earth should have been chosen to make 
Adam in, than that Adam should have been chosen 
for the earth? By the same token. Sludge, being 
chosen, as he believes, a medium to read God by 
signs, chooses his own daily course by signs. Nor 
is the least too insignificant for his use — not even 
the dropping of an apple-pip from either can thus of 
the eye; for, if the left pip drops, it's a sure warning 
to let well-enough alone and forego a certain en- 
terprise for a time at least. 

Is Sludge asked if these rules are infallible? Cer- 
tainly they are not. They are no more infallible — 
and no less so, for that matter — than your scien- 
tist's rules. Take the case of two farmers, one of 
whom was a wiseacre in his own conceit, and after 
much studying of seasons, rummaging almanacs, 
quoting the dew-point, registering the frost, pro- 
phesied confidently that the next summer would 
be dampish. Yet, contrariwise, it proved a drought, 
and he lost all. The other farmer, not so scientific. 



MR, SLUDGE, THE MEDIUM 283 

observed that his brindled heifer stiffened her tail 
of evenings late in March, and, taking it for a prog- 
nostication of ensuing drought, managed accord- 
ingly and so profited greatly, saving hay and corn 
and making cent per cent thereby. Yes, it is un- 
doubtedly a gift to know what signs are true and 
what false, requiring, as it does, a certain predispo- 
sition of the flesh as well as of the mind, and the 
faith that the world was made to serve one's indi- 
vidual end and aim; that the infinitely great is not 
too great for converse with the infinitely small ; nor 
the *' terrible " too far aloof for that. It is curious to 
note how men first came to despise the little things, 
at first seeing Providence only in thunder, light- 
ning, earthquake, and whirlwind, and so, in awe- 
stricken fear, not daring, even like the Jews at the 
present time, to pronounce His name. WTiat, as a 
result, has become so insignificant as the grass, and 
the worm and fly that feed there ! And yet daily life 
is a vast current of common things; and each of 
these, read aright, has its own meaning. The old 
way has somewhat altered in these days, and great 
things are seen as made up of little things. 

And little things go lessening till at last 

Comes God behind them . . . 

The small becomes the dreadful and immense; 

whereas the lightning, once so terrible, can now be 
made — a dollar's worth with 

A tin-foil bottle, a strip of greasy silk, 

a bit of wire and a knob of brass. The Magnum ei 
terribile is terrible no more, and the argument con- 



284 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

cerning our importance in the scheme of things has 
changed its emphasis. We are His children, we 
say, meaning thereby that all the world is a contriv- 
ance to keep up an incessant play of love between 
children and Father. Amen to it! 

As for the child's part, Sludge is not ashamed of 
it; on the contrary, he is proud of it, perfectly con- 
fident of his divine heirship if he but act his child's 
part properly. He believes with child-like faith and, 
child-like, lives by signs and wonders, which, he 
trusts, exist only to point him out the way of safety 
and acclaim his heavenly lineage. He disclaims any 
part or lot with your clever people for whom all life 
is but an arid expanse of the commonplace diversi- 
fied with the inexplicable. For him, as with the 
California gold-seekers, the miraculous and not 
the commonplace is the everyday occurrence. So 
gold is found, the dirty rest of life being flung aside; 
and what is kept is gold, pure gold. 

The other fools believed in mud, no doubt — 
Failed to know the gold they saw. 

On the other hand. Sludge has his drawbacks. 
He will not deny them; they are his, and he 
freely confesses it. They but make him human, 
binding him to the common lot. With all his sen- 
sitiveness to what's going on behind the veil, he 
owns to a streak of cowardice and likewise to an 
inclination to play the cheat and liar sometimes. 
But, when all's said and done, what does it come 
to? Is there no use whatever in lying .^^ Take this 
illustration and see. Sludge, frightened, could not 
walk a plank between windows a hundred feet 



MR. SLUDGE, THE MEDroM 285 

above Beacon Street; but, to beget the necessary 
courage to do so, pasted paper on each side of the 
plank, swore the paper cheat was pavement, and 
walked the plank whistling. Take another case. 
A chalk nest-egg is a cheat, to be sure; yet does it 
not serve admirably to help a credulous hen to lay 
a real egg daily for weeks to come.^ Everybody 
can, will, and does cheat. Moreover, every cheat is 
inspired, and every lie alive with a germ of truth! 
Could n't Sludge do without cheating.^ And if 
so, why does he condescend to it? Well, for one 
reason, because 

There's a strange secret sweet self-sacrifice 
In any desecration of one's soul 
To a worthy end. 

More than that, he must cheat in self-defense. 
What's the world worth otherwise .^^ Does any one 
find it made to his satisfaction? 

Don't it want trimming, turning, furbishing up 
And polishing over? 

Better have faith, though at the sacrifice of truth, 
and so grow, than, having skepticism or a com- 
placent acceptance of things as they are, wither 
up and die ! Look, too, at the practical gains that 
come with genius, beauty, rank, and wealth — 
all participating in Sludgehood. Thus this world 
grows, and grows worth while, until — 

Why, here's the Golden Age, old Paradise 
Or new Utopia ! Here 's true life indeed ! . . . 

This way cheating justifies itself. It justifies itself 
in other ways as well; in poetry, for instance: in the 



286 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

romance of Troy that never was, in the Greeks that 
have only a fictitious existence in Homer. It justi- 
fies itself in history, biography, geology, — each 
being as the author wants it. So there you are! 
Sludge is vindicated, and all Sludges are only a 
blessing in disguise. 

Regarding the impression of this tour deforce on 
mediums and spiritualism there may arise some dif- 
ference of opinion. It is obvious that the advocates 
of Sludge's particular cult of spiritualism regard 
themselves as ridiculed. With the incredulous, of 
course the contrary is the case, as in their eyes the 
taunt of emasculation applies not to themselves 
but to Sludge. 

Is a wider application than this possible.^ Was 
the poem meant to impale a more numerous class 
of humbugs than those of the Sludge sort — a class 
who, whether itinerant or residential, prey upon the 
ignorance of a sensation-loving populace for private 
gain and public notoriety, or, to quote Sludge him- 
self, for the cheap titillation that goes with play- 
ing the liar.f^ The Sludge argument against disinter- 
ested and truth-loving investigation has been made 
current coin by the cheap jacks of every description, 
— medical, theological, and educational, — who 
will find in "Mr. Sludge" a striking delineation of 
their distinguishing characteristics. 



AN EPISTLE 

CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERI- 
ENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN 

Faith and Science 

The general title of the volume in which the 
"Epistle" is contained is "Men and Women." 
This furnishes a clue to the epistle's purpose, which, 
manifestly, is to portray character. The portrayal 
here primarily concerns Karshish, the writer, and 
Lazarus, who has died and been raised again from 
the dead. Karshish is a physician, and the phe- 
nomenon of Lazarus 's death and his resurrection 
at the end of three days furnishes the all-important 
subject matter of the physician's investigation and 
of his report to Abib, a brother in the medical pro- 
fession. The author of Lazarus's miraculous cure 
is discovered to have been a Nazarene physician. 
Another character is mentioned in the account — 
a Syrian messenger to whom Karshish's letter is 
entrusted for delivery to Abib. There are no women 
in the story. Those, then, who are portrayed here 
are, first Karshish, second Lazarus, and third the 
Nazarene healer. 

Karshish is tarrying at Bethany while on his way 
from Jericho to Jerusalem. A picker-up of learn- 
ing's crumbs, he is zealous in the interests of his 
calling, storing his memory with all matters of 
medical utility. Herbs, minerals, human diseases, 
are the objects of his painstaking scrutiny and 



288 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

study. He is inquisitive how pricks and cracks be- 
fall the flesh through too much strain. It is the 
twenty-second time he has written to Abib, his 
medical preceptor and friend; and in his letter he 
encloses three samples of true snake-stone, good for 
charms and still better, when pounded fine, for 
drugs. Other objects of his observation in Jewry are : 
a new kind of gum-tragacanth, which is clear-grained 
and friable under the pestle; a viscid choler observ- 
able in tertians; blue-flowering borage, very nitrous, 
and found in abundance on the margin of pools; 
ash-gray spiders, mottled on the back, which in 
doses of five are a cure for falling-sickness. Most 
remarkable of all is the case of a man with a queer 
look. He is aflflicted with mania; with epilepsy 
prolonged unduly some three days in trance. In a 
most strange manner, writes Karshish, he met the 
man at Bethany. He himself was weary — he had 
shed sweat enough afoot and left flesh and bone on 
many a flinty furlong of the land. A black lynx 
had pricked a tufted ear and snarled, lusting for 
his blood. Robbers had twice stripped and beaten 
him, A town had declared him for a Roman spy. 
Then — 

I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills 
Like an old lion's cheek-teeth. Out there came 
A moon made like a face with certain spots 
Multiform, manifold and menacing. 
Then a wind rose behind me. So we met 
In this old sleepy town at unaware. 
The man and I. 

The man Lazarus, thus met by Karshish, is a 
sanguine Jew, fifty years of age, proportioned, of a 



THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH 289 

wholly laudable habit of body and in an uncom- 
monly good state of health. Only his mental con- 
dition is abnormal. He eyes the world like a child, 
yet is no fool. He pays little heed to questions 
about himself, addressed to the elders of his tribe; 
watches the buzzing flies; speaks only when spoken 
to; seems to have lost all sense of proportion in 
the size, the sum, the values of things : is regard- 
less of the prodigious army assembled to besiege 
his city, but magnifies trifles into facts of mo- 
mentous import; cheerful in the presence of his 
child, though it were sick unto death, but grave 
and startled into an agony of fear by a word, ges- 
ture, glance from that same child at play or at 
school or laid asleep. Whole results he knows, views 
the sum of things, measuring each act and occur- 
rence from this standard. He holds on to this earthly 
life as to a thread, amid the before and after of the 
spiritual world orbing him around. Ever humble 
and studiously submissive to the heavenly will, he 
reveals by a look the eager soul springing into his 
face as if he saw and heard again the sage physician 
who bade him rise, knowing God's secret. Reproved 
for his stolid carelessness while Rome is on the 
march to stamp out his town, his tribe, and him at 
once, he merely stares back with large wide eyes. 
And yet the man is not apathetic, for all things 
he loves: flowers, brutes, and birds; impatient at 
nothing except at ignorance. 

But strangest tale of all is that of the Nazarene 
who cured him; who, accused of wizardry in a tu- 
mult many years ago, perished at the hands of the 
mad populace. It was the time the earthquake fell. 



290 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Many wild rumors are afloat. But they are, they 
must be, lies. And the most astounding is the re- 
port about our patient, Lazarus, who after all is but 
a person stark mad. One thing more — nothing 
must be withheld from a leech. It is this : Lazarus 
cured regards the curer as none other than God him- 
self — God, who came and dwelt in the flesh awhile, 
taught, healed the sick, and died. It is a tedious 
case, tediously set forth. Yet, think, Abib! Could 
this have been the very God.^ What if the All- 
Great were the All-Loving too.? — saying to man 
His creature: 

" O heart I made, a heart beats here ! 
Face my hands fashioned, see it in myself! 
Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine. 
But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 
And thou must love me who have died for thee!" 

The madman saith He said so; it is strange! 

The distinguishing features in the personality of 
Karshish are, first of all, his devoted industry as a 
picker-up of learning's crumbs in the service of 
medicine and his reluctance in admitting to a 
brother physician any other than a professional 
explanation of Lazarus's idea of his resurrection, 
persisting to the end in calling it a malady. His 
professional habit is further displayed in his per- 
sistence in regarding the Nazarene as a physician; 
in his sorrow that the Nazarene's cure for epilepsy 
is not obtainable; and in his professional disposition 
to explain Lazarus's mental divagations as due to 
a drug administered. Of course, nothing is proved, 
and the diagnosis remains pure conjecture. As a 



THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH 291 

result, the current rumor of the Nazarene's wizardry 
finds no acceptance with him; yet the other popu- 
lar explanation of the divinity of the wonder- 
worker makes in the end an irresistible appeal. 

From the concrete dramatic form of the poem 
it is impossible to predicate Browning's own feel- 
ing in the case, especially concerning the validity of 
the argument. Doubtless it would be a mistake to 
view the poem as a tour deforce in argumentation or 
doctrinal preachment. Rather, it is to be regarded 
as a work of art whose purpose is to portray a por- 
tentous historical situation with fidelity to time, 
place, and persons. The problem Browning pro- 
poses is to view the resurrection of Lazarus with 
the eyes of contemporaneous medical authority; 
and the solution is worked out in conceiving of 
Karshish as a typical exponent of medicine within 
the life-time of Lazarus. 

The epistolary style adopted as the artistic me- 
dium has its difficulties; difficulties which Brown- 
ing recognizes in the lines. 

Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, 
Which, now that I view it, needs must seem 
Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth. 

Prolixity is a natural characteristic of letters, es- 
pecially of the news-giving, diary- writing sort; and 
it is needless to say that the poet has imitated them 
admirably — even to the crossing of a "t" or the 
dotting of an " i." The letter opens with appropriate 
jottings-down on the country traversed in the jour- 
ney from Jericho to Bethany; the minerals, herbs, 
and diseases that abound in Jewry. It continues 



292 STORIES FROM BROT^TTO^G 

with a rambling account of Lazarus, who, as the 
diagnosis and not the man is the question of first 
importance, is not mentioned until the narrative is 
well on its way. The strange meeting with the man, 
unaware by moonlight, is withheld until near the 
close; and the time and other place allusions are 
woven in as if by the way or incidentally, instead 
of being bunched or lumped together. This tech- 
nique makes for the illusion of reality: the epistle 
is a real letter. It also simulates the extempora- 
neous current of conversation which requires the 
reader to float with the stream the moment he finds 
himself on it, and to catch, as chance offers, the in- 
formation necessary to a knowledge of his where- 
abouts. 

These, then, are some of the sources of real pleas- 
ure derived from a perusal of "The Strange Medi- 
cal Experience of Karshish." His medical diagno- 
sis we at once take to be characteristic, knowing it 
to be informing only so far as it is characteristic. 
On the other hand, we are met much as Karshish 
met Lazarus, by strange ideas touching us, too, 
with peculiar interest and awe : the effect of absolute 
truth upon a finite intelligence would be inertia, in 
that it would act as a distorting medium for the 
perception of earthly values. Truth needs to be 
graduated in proportion to capacity. That Brown- 
ing himself seriously held to this faith is to be in- 
ferred from his presentation of it in other poems, 
as, for instance, "A Death in the Desert" and 
"Development." The important matter for Kar- 
shish — a matter that seems to have grown upon 
him while he was writing, if not in the course of 



THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH 293 

his diagnosis — is a reluctant and ashamed con- 
sciousness of the supernatural claims of the Na- 
zarene healer; and a consciousness of the force of 
that claim in the revelation that the All-Great may 
be the All-Loving too. In proportion as the reader 
finds this teaching acceptable, so far will he feel 
the poem satisfying; and if he sees himself in the 
position of Karshish, he will hail the writer as great. 
These considerations are intended to stress the 
moral values of the "Epistle"; since, after all, it 
is for such values that society cares. 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS 
OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND 

Faith and Theology 

Caliban is a representative of the natural man. 
In Shakespeare's "Tempest" he is a monster, a 
crawling thing, somewhat of the shape of a man 
and with the scales of a fish. Browning's Caliban 
is undoubtedly derived from Shakespeare's. Brown- 
ing's creation is possessed of belly, elbows, chin, 
feet, spine, arms, eyes, hair and beard. And in the 
course of the poem he is made to speak, kick, 
laugh, and, indeed, philosophize. His philosophiz- 
ing, as is indicated in the alternative title, takes the 
course of natural theology. Since the theology is 
meant to be natural, it is not unlikely that the 
philosopher, Caliban, is meant to be no less so. He 
"talks to his own self" in a most singular way, 
"letting the rank tongue blossom into speech." 
The world of civilization is unknown to him except 
in the persons of Prosper, his master, and Mi- 
randa, Prosper's fair and innocent daughter, the 
only human beings on Prosper's island in tropical I 

mid-ocean. So we are informed in "The Tempest." 1 

The only other human beings Caliban has known I 

are his mother, the foul witch Sycorax, and the airy J 

spirit Ariel, doomed to do her service. Much of this ^ 

is antecedent to the situation; and, while it is more •; 

or less clearly alluded to in the poem, is taken by ,' 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS 295 

the poet as matter of common knowledge with the 
reader. 

The situation is this : Caliban lies kicking in the 
cool slushy mire at the mouth of a cave with elbows 
wide and clenched fists propping his chin. Small 
eft-things course about his spine and ribs, running 
in and out each arm, and make him laugh. A pom- 
pion-plant trails its vine from the cave's brow over- 
head and tickles his hair and beard. Flowers grow 
-around him; ripened fruit falls, which he catches 
and crunches. The sea lies open before him, the 
breakers curling on the beach just under his eyes. 

The island has been his only home, and he knows 
it well with all its living things : the otter, sleek- wet, 
black, lithe as a leech; the brown badger that hunts 
with slant white- wedge eye by moonlight; the pie 
that with long tongue pricks deep into oakwarts 
for a worm; the ants that build a wall of seeds and 
settled stalks about their hole; the gourd-fruit 
which, when melted into mash with honey added 
and pods, rises into bladdery froth, and, when 
drunk, makes maggots scamper through the brain; 
the hoopoe with a great comb; the grigs that make 
merry din saucily through their veined wings; the 
crabs that march from the mountain to the sea — 
some with purple spots, some with nippers ending 
in red; quails; cuttle-fish; hips and grapes; ounces, 
moles; the pauch-bill crane; the armored ore; the 
squirrel, stealing the nut from underneath his 
thumb ; the urchin which at need curls up into a ball ; 
grubs that grow into butterflies; flies with purple 
films and pink; beetles rolling their ball on head 
and tail; and the raven, dark messenger of the sky. 



296 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

Slave to Prosper, Caliban grudges him service; 
knows it to be drudgery and shirks it; envies him; 
would have Miranda for his own. 

This is the natural world of Caliban. What is his 
natural theology.^ What can he know of God? It 
is the answer to that question that makes, accord- 
ing to the variant title, the purpose of the poem. 

Caliban, savage though he is, has some concep- 
tion of divinity; and casual observers in that field 
need not be surprised to note a parallel between 
certain lines of Caliban's thinking and certain 
ideas of divinity current at this time. Caliban knows 
a god, and his name is Setebos. Behind and above 
Setebos, and controlling him, is another; and his 
name is the Quiet. Caliban's concern is with Sete- 
bos; of the Quiet he thinks more vaguely, indeed 
only as a benevolent and absentee master of Sete- 
bos himself. But of Setebos Caliban has clear-cut 
ideas. For example: It is by reason of his servitude 
to the Quiet that Setebos is filled with cold and ache 
and envy and wanton cruelty and tyranny; delight- 
ing, in turn, in the fear and submission and misery of 
his creatures — a blinded beast, loving only whoso 
puts flesh-meat on his nose. 

Mark the bold lines of Caliban's cogitations: 
Setebos, he thinks, dwells in the cold of the moon. 
This is not by choice but by compulsion. He would 
dwell in warmer places, but like a fresh- water fish 
that would swim in the sea, finds that he cannot 
live out of his element. That is why Setebos de- 
spairs ; that is why he hates. Consequently, he made 
this isle and all that in it is, in envy, listlessness, or 
sport; made all his creatures what himself would 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS 297 

in a manner be; and so admires them, but mocks 
them, too, because, however bravely beautiful all 
things are, they are after all but the creatures of his 
whim; nothing prospers if he begin to plague. It is 
just like this, says Caliban : Suppose I drink of the 
bladdery gourd-fruit mash till maggots scamper 
through my brain; and, wishing to be a bird, am 
denied my wish; and so make one for my sport and 
pleasure out of clay, with a great comb like the 
hoopoe's and a sting to do his enemies offense. I 
send him to nip grigs on yon rock-top; and, while 
he pleasures me, he snaps his leg like brittle clay. 
Then, to lesson him that he's mine and merely 
clay, I either make him three new legs or strip him 
of all clean as an egg, as suits my whim. The same 
does Setebos. 

Suppose I cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint, 
which, blown through, gives exactly the scream of 
the jay; and the pipe grows boastful, and prattling 
says, "I, the pipe, am the crafty thing, making the 
cry my maker cannot make." Should the pipe say 
this to me, would I not then smash it with my foot? 
The same does Setebos. 

But why is he so rough and cold and ill at ease? 
Who knows? What knows? Perhaps the something 
over Setebos that made him. Perhaps he knows — 
the Quiet, who alone has happy life. Setebos, out 
of spite for his ill condition, makes him a bauble- 
world here in this island, imitating his master the 
wonder-worker, as I imitate Prosper the magician, 
my master; and takes his mirth with make-believes 
as I take mine. So it is that Setebos, the malicious 
bungler, made all things in this isle. Else why did 



298 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

he not make them more perfect: my scalp, for in- 
stance, with a cap of bone for the snow; my flesh 
armored against danger Hke an ore? 

And Setebos, besides, creates things merely for 
the keen joy of experimentation — for work's 
sole sake; only to destroy them again some day as 
ruthlessly as I, Caliban, overturn these blocks of 
chalk in the sand. 

Moreover, he is terrible and spiteful; else, why 
lick up with one fell sweep of the sea my half -win- 
ter's work of wattles for catching she-tortoises 
crawling here to lay their eggs? Witness, too, this 
newt, petrified, shut up in a stone — the work of his 
envy. His glory is in fear from his creatures ; and his 
hope to surprise even the Quiet's self some strange 
day and grow up into a Quiet, too, as grubs grow 
butterflies. 

Meanwhile, the expedient thing for me, Caliban, 
to do is to trick and humor him, Setebos; and never 
to arouse his envy by seeming too happy. Behold 
these gaudy flies; those painful tumble-beetles 
rolling their ball on head and tail as if to save their 
lives: the flies he kills for their gayety; the beetles 
he coddles for their abject misery. 

— At this juncture the sky blackens, lightning 
blazes white, thunder claps, and Caliban crouches, 
lying flat; declares he loves Setebos; vows fasting 
and sacrificial offerings; so will he escape the wrath 
of Setebos. 

The attributes here assigned to the Deity are 
not so fire-new as to be astonishing; or, rather, 
they are not so obsolete as to appear monstrous, 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS ^99 

even when full allowance is made for the monstrous 
source of their expression in Caliban. God's envy 
is not a strange, but rather a familiar conception 
with those persons who habitually refrain from 
being too happy lest they invite the visitation of 
some dire calamity, like the mother who fears to 
love her child too much lest it be snatched from her. 
God's hatred is an idea even more widely prev- 
alent than his envy. Witness the familiar Russian 
Hymn : ^ — 

God the All-terrible! King who ordainest, 

Great winds thy clarions, the lightning thy sword. 

God the Omnipotent! Mighty Avenger, 
Watching invisible, judging unheard. 

Envy, hatred, and wrath as elements in primitive 
conceptions of the Deity are unmistakably present 
in various forms of the idol worship of the world 
in which sacrificial offerings form a part. Is the 
same to be said of the sacrifices recorded in Holy 
Writ? Has the doctrine of the Atonement for its 
basis such motives as Caliban ascribed to Setebos 
— the motive, for instance, of the grave displeas- 
ure of God.f^ 

The love of Setebos for wanton and whimsical 
destructiveness finds reflection in that naturalis- 
tic philosophy which has its chief exponent in the 
doctrine of evolution. Tennyson gives voice to it 
in "In Memoriam," lv: — 

So careful of the type she [Nature] seems. 
So careless of the single life. 

^ Preshyterian Hymnal, No. 670; Methodist Hymnal, No. 1092. 



300 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

On the other hand, the idea is doubtless as old as 
fatalism. It finds fatalistic expression in the memor- 
able words of Shakespeare, put into the mouth of 
the blinded Gloucester in "King Lear" (iv, i, 
37-38): — 

As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods; 
They kill us for their sport. 

The conception of endless experimentation on 
the part of the Deity is no less a modern one, being 
also intimately associated with the theory of evo- 
lution. Nature hits the mark not by means of a 
single shot, but by firing in all directions. 

The concluding and climactic feature of Caliban's 
reflections — that, namely, where he is frightened 
by thunder and lightning out of his blasphemy 
into pious vows of submission and sacrificial offer- 
ing, is too common an experience, even with the 
rationalists, to require comment. A proverb puts 
it with as much, though with a less subtle sort of, 
humor : — 

The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be; 
The Devil was well, — the devil a monk was he! 

What is to be said of Browning's purpose in this 
poem.^ That he meant to illustrate a kind of "natu- 
ral theology" the variant title makes plain. That 
his meaning is colored with ridicule might be in- 
ferred from the unmistakably humorous touches 
in the process of characterization, and especially 
from that final stroke of delineation which shows 
Caliban in panic at the display of Setebos's terrible 
anger. According to this view, then, the poem is a 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS 301 

satire; but of whom, it is not necessary to point 
out. 

Another interesting element in the intellectual 
and emotional values of "Caliban upon Setebos" 
is the resemblance of its central idea to that of 
Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound." In Shelley's 
work, it will be recalled, Jupiter, ruler but not 
creator of all things, is pictured as possessed of 
envy and hatred as well as power. He hates Pro- 
metheus for having brought the fire of knowledge 
from Heaven and having spread it among men. 
He envies Prometheus for his fortitude in enduring 
the torture to which he has condemned him — the 
beak and talons of a vulture tearing at his vitals as 
he hangs chained to a rock. He hates and envies 
Prometheus for rejecting liberation on the condi- 
tion that he disclose the cause for the prophesied 
downfall of his captor. Jupiter's failure lies in his 
lack of love for his creatures. A power incapable 
of the feeling of love cannot endure. The downfall 
comes; and the Ruler of the Universe is carried 
away by Demogorgon to everlasting ruin. The hos- 
tile attitude of Shelley's poem toward orthodox re- 
ligion needs no further explanation. The attitude 
of "Caliban upon Setebos" does not, however, 
seem so clear. It is enough for our purpose if we 
recognize, as by this time we assuredly do, some of 
the deep suggestiveness of Browning's poem. 

Another course of questioning to which it lends 
itself is prompted by the word "projected" used 
by John in "A Death in the Desert" to describe 
the heresy of a later day concerning the love and 
the power of Christ. That Setebos with his attri- 



302 



STORIES FROM BROWNING 



butes of hatred, envy, and wanton destructiveness 
is only a projection of Caliban's disposition, is quite 
patent. The poem does not indicate a generaliza- 
tion affecting all religions, and makes no allusion 
in this light, as does "A Death in the Desert," to 
Christianity. If it did, the reader would lose no- 
thing by referring to John for a refutation of the 
idea. Nor is it without profit to note that such 
ideas have obtained and that refutation has been 
made; and the observation is one more testimonial 
to the thought-provoking character of the poem. 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT 

Faith and Heresy 

One day, probably late in the first century of the 
Christian era, Cerinthus has before him a Greek 
manuscript upon which he muses as he reads. The 
manuscript is supposed to be by Pamphylax, the 
Antiochene, and concerns the death of John in a 
cave in the desert. It is a parchment roll of three 
skins glued together, the fifth in the library of an 
unknown person whose identity is indicated only 
by the letters Mu and Epsilon. The account Ce- 
rinthus reads relates to John's ministry, the com- 
position of his gospel in the island of Patmos, and 
his subsequent death in the desert. The story is, 
first, that of Pamphylax, an eye-witness of John, 
and, second, that of John himself as quoted by 
Pamphylax. 

John, arrived at extreme old age, lies unconscious 
in a cave. He is surrounded by four men. They have 
brought him here to minister to him in his extrem- 
ity. They are: Pamphylax, who later tells the story 
to Phoebas; Xanthus, afterwards burned at the 
stake; Valens, and a Boy. Loving brethren these, 
and disciples; and they have repaired to the mid- 
most grotto of their retreat, both to escape the glare 
and heat of the sun, and to circumvent the spying 
soldiery of a bloody persecution. For safety they 
liave left on guard at the mouth of the cave a de- 
voted convert, a Bactrian, who there makes pre- 



304 



STORIES FROM BROWNING 



tense of feeding a goat on a ragged growth of various 
herbs, "plantain and quitch," which "the rock's 
shade keeps ahve." 

John, the aged disciple, teacher and writer, lies in 
a stupor. How to rekindle the fading spark of life, 
is the concern of his four attendants. One offers the 
dying man wine, chafes his hands, and cools his fore- 
head with a cloth steeped in water; another breaks 
a ball of nard and makes perfume. Suddenly the 
Boy, "stung by a thought," runs to an inner recess 
of the chamber and brings a "plate of graven lead," 
and reads from it the restoring words, "I am the 
Resurrection and the Life." The effect is instanta- 
neous. John, opening his eyes, sits up, looks around, 
while in the entrance to the outer grotto of the 
cave the Bactrian sentinel repeats a reassuring cry 
in imitation of the ruffed desert-bird for sign that 
all is well. 

John speaks: I recall now who I am and where. 
I remember all like a spark rekindling a half -burnt 
stick. James and Peter are long since released by 
death. If I live, it will be still to bear witness to 
Him I saw, the Word of Life. Bidden by Christ, for 
many years I went about the world teaching what 
I heard and saw. Then, bidden once more, in Pat- 
mos isle I wrote; and men believed. Then I taught 
again. I taught that men should believe for love's 
sake and in love's strength. 

Antichrist came, followed by many antichrists. 
Them, too, I answered patiently; not as in early 
days, by treading the serpents dumb; my answer 
ever being the story of the Lord's life, forgotten or 
misdelivered; and it grew to new significance and 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT '305 

fresh result. Others came, crying, "It is getting 
long ago. Where is the promise of his coming .f^" 
These also I answered; and thus endeavoring, fell 
sick; ye brought me here. And now, revived, weak 
memory pales; and my senses go groping into the 
future; and I hear strange men cry, "Was John 
at all.?" 

Can I assure thenLf^ How.^^ Can they see as I 
see.? Can the spirit of youth break through the thick 
barrier of flesh.? Is not God now in the world and 
at issue with sin? Are not sin and death contribu- 
tory and necessary to His resurrection and uprise 
to the right hand of the throne.? To learn life, learn 
love. Learn the double way of life : the way of the 
flesh and the way of the soul; the prompt upgrowth 
of the body and the slow development of the soul. 
Witness the fire of Prometheus, snatched from 
Heaven for the body's use. This never will the body 
surrender. Witness Christ. Were his worth to the 
soul as plain as the worth of Promethean fire to the 
body, could the soul give Him up.? Yea, even I who 
have seen Him in a moment denied Him. Stricken 
by fear of sudden Roman faces and violent hands, 
I forsook Him and fled, as it is written. Nay, but 
I recovered. That is the way of the soul's growth; 
and having recovered, I lit the souls of many to 
clasp the cross with a light laugh and wrap the 
burning martyr's robe around. 

A greater difficulty than the facing of violence 
arose in the shrewd tongue of doubt, questioning 
my own existence. A time will soon be when by the 
followers of Christ it will be asked, not. Will Christ 
come again and when.? but, Was He revealed by 



306 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

any of His biographers as Power, as Love? and, 
if so, did not we ourselves make Him? His love? 
'T is mere projection from man's inmost mind. His 
power? Behold the sun and the power which drives 
it. What is that power? Mere projection of our- 
selves again: so our ancestors thought, declaring 
a charioteer's yoked steeds brought the sun up the 
east and down the west. But this is not so. Force 
we cannot know; love and will, once seen, we can 
and do know. 

Again the skeptic : A mere zeal for right has made 
men declare the sun at undue times arose or set 
or else stood still. Go back to the birth of things. 
Mark Jove's brow, Juno's eyes, head, body, hands 
and feet; mere projection, these, from the mind of 
man. Brow, eyes, body, of the gods vanish; and 
their power, love, and will eventually vanish too, 
making place for law. 

Attend to my answer — No, I need no wine, for 
I am strong : Since man was made to grow, the helps 
he needed once and found good he needs no more. 
All things suffer change, save God the truth; and 
with change the old helps are cast aside. Nothing 
shall prove twice what once was proved. As ordered 
twigs in a garden plot show where lately the seed 
was sown, but, now that the fruit has grown, are 
discarded; so my book at first needed miracles to 
prove its truth; but miracles now it needs no more. 
Aye, man was made to grow, to develop; not made 
and then abandoned like a machine, a wheel-work 
to wind up. Minds at first must be spoon-fed with 
truth. When they can eat, babe's-nurture is with- 
drawn. By miracles faith grew. Later, because they 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT 307 

would compel instead of help, they ceased. As 
excess of light produces darkness; as excess of oil 
chokes a lamp ; as excess of food starves the stomach : 
so excess of might blinds man to the will in him- 
self, at one with the Infinite Will behind all might. 

Take love and the power of Christ in love. It is 
the same again. God revealed love behind will and 
might. 

Again the skeptic: We ourselves made the love, 
and Christ was not. 

My answer: The man must love and would be 
loved; yet owning his own love that proves Christ, 
he rejects Him through very need of Him. He per- 
ishes of his own surfeit. 

Again the skeptic : But places, names, and dates 
are wrong. False premise, false conclusion. Perfect 
truth should have perfect transmission of it; there 
should be no flaw in the record. Why hit or miss? 
Why not hit and never miss? Is the fact in the 
fable? Is the record symbolical? Why this per- 
plexity? Why not tell the whole truth directly and 
in proper words? 

My answer: Man is not God, is not perfect; but 
must grow from good to better, from mistake to 
fact. This is the way of service and obedience, 
conditioned upon love and will behind the highest 
might: denying which, life becomes impossible, 
and death ensues. But assume man's service and 
obedience; assume that man is made to know only 
what he can know and no more, converting fancies 
into fact, finding progress, — so becomes clear 
man's distinctive use and place. Such progress 
were impossible, were all things known absolutely. 



308 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

God's gift was that man should conceive of truth 
And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake 
As midway help till he reach fact indeed. 

Such is the method of the statuary : by repeated 
and successive efforts fashioning the approximate 
image. 

John resumes: These are the doubts of later 
years. These are my answers; which, if they be 
insufficient, may I survive another hundred years 
to pluck blind men from the abyss. 

— John dies about mid-afternoon. In the evening 
they bury him. Each of the five attendants goes 
his own way alone, Pamphylax returning disguised 
to Ephesus. Having dictated the story to Phcebas, 
he goes to fight the beasts in a dread persecution 
of the Christians. 

This is the parchment which Cerinthus, doubting, 
reads. Another, reading it years afterward, aflfirms 
the divinity of Christ on the basis of love, whereby 
He becomes incorporate with him as with John and 
Pamphylax. Only Cerinthus and the company of 
unbelievers with him are lost. 

On the score of verisimilitude, Browning's own 
word, "projected," put into the mouth of a skeptic 
of Christ's love and power, is suggestive. This 
skeptical philosophy has confessedly been pro- 
jected from a much later century into the time 
of John's ministry. John is made to anticipate cer- 
tain theological irregularities which have marked 
the progress of civilization since John's death in the 
desert. The poem attempts to make plausible this 
supernatural foresight of John by referring it to 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT 309 

the discipleship of the miracle-working Christ, to 
the supernatural wisdom of John's extreme old 
age, and to his nearness, by reason of his great age, 
to the All- Wise Infinite. 

The touches of local color which reproduce early 
time and place, are quite distinct : The Bactrian on 
guard at the cave's mouth, feeding a goat on ragged 
weeds of plantain and quitch, and at intervals 
making the cry of the ruffed desert-bird as a pre- 
concerted signal that all is well; the plate of graven 
lead bearing the inscription, "I am the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life"; the manuscript of three pieces 
of parchment glued together and marked Chi, and 
preserved in a trunk of cloth of hair; the proper 
names, Pamphylax, Xanthus, Valens, Phcebas, 
and Cerinthus, and the incidental references to 
Xanthus's being burned later at the stake; to 
John's having denied Christ during a moment of 
violence at the hands of Roman soldiery; to Pam- 
phylax dictating to Phoebas the record of John's 
death; to the gloss of Theotypas on the threefold 
soul of man; and to the final gloss by an unknown 
hand on the divinity of Christ. These touches are 
all in the interests of historicity; or rather, of the 
illusion of historicity. 

Such devices for verisimilitude are, of course, 
common to all fiction; only. Browning's way of 
handling them is characteristic. Another device to 
the same end, which is supremely characteristic, is 
implied by Browning himself in the title, "Drama- 
tis Personse," for the general group of poems to 
which "A Death in the Desert" belongs. This de- 
vice, while, like the ordinary drama, it brings a 



310 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

group of persons into view, does not allow them to 
engage in dialogue, but permits only one end of a 
dialogue to be developed, which for that reason is 
comparable to what a person speaking into a tele- 
phone is overheard to say. Naturally, this one-sided 
dialogue is cast in the first person singular, and 
assumes the form of monologue and not of solilo- 
quy. As already noted, the monologuists of "A 
Death in the Desert " are successively an unknown 
reader, Pamphylax, Theotypas, John, Cerinthus, 
and an unknown commentator. While the alleged 
difficulty of Browning is due largely to this form, 
in which so much is left to suggestion on the part 
of the writer and conjecture on the part of the 
reader, it is to be said, not by way of extenuation 
and excuse but by way of appreciation and com- 
mendation, that this is one way of life, and es- 
pecially the way of direct psychological expression. 
It discloses a mind — that of John in this case — 
so reacting upon a situation as to be self -interpreta- 
tive; it does not permit the stage-manager to ex- 
plain the manipulation of his puppets — it does not 
even allow his presence; nor yet does it allow the 
other characters in the performance to explain 
either themselves, one another, or the situation. 



SAUL 

The Transcending Power of a Vision 

Abner says to David, after the two have saluted 
with a kiss: "Since Saul the King has sent for thee, 
we have neither eaten nor drunk. He is sick in 
spirit unto death. There in the darkness of his tent, 
he has staid these three days in silence." Thus 
David, harpist of the golden hair, is welcomed, 
— David, with lilies twined about his harp-strings 
to keep them from snapping in the noon-day heat. 

He kneels in prayer, then runs over the sun- 
parched sand to Saul's tent. He finds the entrance 
unlooped, but a spear obstructing it. Pulling this 
up, he crawls in on hands and knees, and announces 
his presence. There is no answer. Gradually in the 
darkness grows visible the figure of Saul, gigantic, 
leaning against the "prop which sustains the pa- 
vilion" in the center, "arms stretched out wide on 
the great cross-support." Still there is no response. 

Then David unwinds the lilies from his harp and 
plays first a sheep-tune; then a quail-tune; then a 
tune to "make the crickets elate"; then a tune to 
"set the quick jerboa a-musing"; then a "help- 
tune for reapers"; then a funeral march; then a 
marriage-chant; then a builders' song; and, last, 
a paean to the Highest. At this Saul shudders so 
that the male-sapphires of his turban wake a lord- 
lier light, and the rubies a deeper glow. But there 
is no response. 



312 



STORIES FROM BROWNING 



Again David sings, his theme this time the wild 
joys of living in manhood's prime vigor, the rending 
of boughs from the fir-tree, the plunge in a pool's 
living water, the hunt of the bear, the meal of rich 
dates and locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the 
sleep amid bulrushes in the dried river-channel; 
sings of father, mother, brothers, friends of boy- 
hood — boyhood of wonder and hope; sings of high 
ambition and of fame crowning the monarch, Saul. 

At this upsoaring cherubim-chariot of song, 
Saul, like a mountain which in spring shakes off its 
breastplate of snow, shakes off his lethargy, the same 
Saul as before, though life has not come. How to 
sustain him where song has restored him.? With 
song of the ways of the spirit, of schemes of life; 
of courage that gains, of the prudence that keeps, 
what men strive for. In our flesh grows the branch 
of this life, in our soul it bears fruit. Leave the 
flesh to its fate; let the spirit be owned; knowing the 
palm's self shall decay while the palm-wine shall 
stanch every wound of man's spirit. By the spirit 
he shall live in old age; for each deed he has done, 
dies, revives, goes to work in the world. Is Saul 
dead.f^ No; poet and statesman shall rear him a 
monument of great word and sweet comment. 

David pauses to pray for aid that he may com- 
plete this adventure of clearing the distance be- 
tween God's throne and man's grave in the life of 
Saul. Hereupon Saul resumes his kingly habitudes, 
replumes his black locks, adjusts the swathes of 
his turban, girds his loins as of yore, feels for his 
priceless armlets. He sinks by the tent-prop, lean- 
ing on his armor piled there, one arm around the 



SAUL 313 

prop. With a hand soft and grave but in mild 
settled will he pushes back the poet's hair, intent 
to peruse it as men do a flower. The ultimate truth 
flashes upon David; but this time, leaving harp 
and song, he speaks : 

An instrument of God's purpose and judge of 
God's creation and work, he discerns that all 's love, 
yet all's law. And straining each faculty to per- 
ceive God's work, he has learned man's worth. Has 
he knowledge .f^ It shrivels at wisdom laid bare. Has 
he forethought.'^ How purblind and blank to God's 
infinite care. He pictures success .^^ God's perfection 
confronts him — in the star, the stone, the flesh, 
the soul, the clod. By submission and obeisance 
man climbs to God's feet. Withal, there is a gift 
to discover and exercise — the faculty of love. Do 
I, David, distrust it.? Do I fear that God's love 
will fail to match it? Is it possible that in love the 
creature will surpass the Creator.'^ Will not God, 
who made Saul and me, love him more than I can, 
and bestow on him the marvelous dower I wish for 
— on Saul stripped of failure and awakened from 
probation to new light and new life? Surely it is 
so, since I am but God's instrument, able to be- 
lieve but what he wills. What of impuissance and 
success? This: 'tis not what man does which 
exalts him, but what man would do. This makes 
my service perfect, my service in my wish to help, 
in my willingness to suffer for him that I love. As 
love is Almighty, so is the power of being beloved. A 
hand like mine — weak, but weak in strength; weak 
in the flesh, but strong in the spirit — shall throw 
open the gates of new life to Saul. 'T is Christ's. 



314 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

With this conviction thrilling his veins, David 
finds his way home in the night, with witnesses 
about him, unseen powers. The whole earth is 
awakened, hell loosed with her crews, and the stars 
of night with emotion. In rapture he falls asleep; 
and awaking, finds the new power still about him, 
in hills and forest, and winds; in startled wild beasts 
and birds paralyzed; in the serpent that slides away 
silent; in the white humid faces of flowers; in vines 
and trees and brooks; all saying, "E'en so, it is so!" 

It is an act of temerity to quarrel with the poet; 
but given the temerity, one might say that this is 
more manifestly the story of David than the story 
of Saul. Of the nineteen sections of the poem, Saul 
takes part in only the first fifteen, and that a pas- 
sive part only. Never does he emerge far out of the 
background. At no time can l^e be said to assume 
the role of a dramatic personage. It is David's 
healthy mental state, rather than Saul's morbid 
perturbation, that makes the real subject of in- 
terest. On the contrary, it may be urged that, as 
Saul represents any life and David any savior, the 
human side as seen in Saul is the more universal 
and hence the more interesting; so it is Saul's story. 
On the other hand, again, it is to be maintained 
that David represents not only the Christ, but any 
one capable of Christlike functions; a character as 
universal as the character in need of ministry. And, 
as David is in the foreground and Saul is not, it is 
David's story and not Saul's. 

From these considerations it would appear that 
the moral values of the poem are dominant. Let us 



SAUL 315 

work up to this conclusion by reconsidering the 
structure of the poem. From its story it appears 
that a critical moment in Saul's life, a moment of 
mental and spiritual climax, is the fundament of 
the narrative. Indeed, so far as action in physical 
incident is concerned, there is next to none. Saul 
has been sick three days, and David is summoned 
to minister with music. Saul is heartened not only 
for this life, but for the next; and David makes the 
discovery that ministry in love is the perfection of 
life. It is the real and final purpose of the poem not 
to portray Saul's mental and spiritual condition, 
for we are told little about it; nor yet to delineate 
his character, as a knowledge of that is taken for 
granted; nor yet to picture the atmosphere or color, 
the manners and customs of the people of Saul and 
David's time, since these features are etched in by 
a few bold strokes. David is a fair-haired figure 
with a harp with lilies wound about its strings. Saul 
is of gigantic presence with sapphires and rubies 
flashing in his turban. The scene is a tent or pa- 
vilion, in the desert. Other local touches present 
the shepherd life of David : his familiar converse 
with the sheep of his pasture, the quail, the crick- 
ets, the jerboa, the reapers of the plain. These are 
elements incidentally wrought into the web of the 
main narrative, which concerns itself with spiritual 
operations. Working alleviation for Saul, David 
achieves the supreme discovery, not only for him- 
self but for all men, that " 'T is not what man Does 
which exalts him, but what man Would do." 

This brings us to the subject of emotional values. 
Is this doctrine of perfection in loving service, of the 



316 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

insignificance of achievement as weighed against 
motive and desire, acceptable? "See the Christ 
stand." Is that injunction acceptable and pleasing? 
The emotional values of the discovery for David 
himself are vividly drawn in the concluding sections 
of the poem. The whole world has changed; rap- 
ture in the new law that "all's love, yet all's law" 
pervades all things — the forests, the startled wild 
beasts, the birds, the flowers, the vine-bowers and 
brooks. And the rapture of David's discovery is 
meant to stand for the rapture of any man's dis- 
covery. 

The emotional basis of the poem in aesthetics as 
distinct from morals will involve a view of its imag- 
ery, its coloring, its metre, and its characteriza- 
tion. 

Imagery, we recall, is either progressive (which 
is to say, narrative) or Episodic (which is to say, 
ancillary or ornamental or epic). This distinction 
in imagery discloses its purpose : it is either a vehicle 
of the thought or an embellishment of it. The 
images of "Saul" can serve best as vehicles of its 
story if they are true to conditions of time and 
place; and, in outlining the narrative, we have 
already noticed that the oriental and primitive 
setting of the action is without anachronisms or 
contradictions in local color. The most notable 
of the episodic pictures are these two from sec- 
tion X : — 

Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the 

aim. 
And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he 

alone. 



SAUL 317 

While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad 

bust of stone 
A year's snow bound about for a breastplate, — leaves grasp 

of the sheet? 
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his 

feet. 
And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your moun- 
tain of old. 
With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold — 
Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and 

scar 
Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest — all hail, there 

they are! 
— Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest 
Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on its 

crest 
For their food in the ardors of summer. 

I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any 

more 
Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the 

shore. 
At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean — a sun's slow decline 
Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine 
Base with base to knit strength more intensely : so, arm folded 

arm 
O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. 

So far as these pictures do not exist for their own 
sakes, — as, however, they do largely, — they 
have' their excuse and function in the rich deep 
tone and coloring they impart to the narrative. The 
coloring is not oriental or local to any extent; in- 
deed, it is elemental and universal. 

The question of truth to time and place when 
applied to characterization produces different re- 
sults. That the historic David could and did sing 
the tunes ascribed to him in the poem may be ac- 



318 STORIES FROM BROWNING 

cepted as possible and not improbable. That, on 
the other hand, he could and did animadvert upon 
the function of the poet as that of an observer and 
seer, is, it is believed, subject for reasonable differ- 
ence of opinion. (See sections xvii-xix) . Is Brown- 
ing here speaking for himself under cover of David .^ 
If so, here is an instance of anachronism, which is 
paralleled only by the universal practice of the 
pulpit in reading modern civilization and culture 
into the Biblical text; and of the no-less-general 
practice of interpreting Shakespeare in terms of 
nineteenth and twentieth century life. Does the 
reader find in " Saul " what Stedman finds in " Pippa 
Passes," the acute analysis of an erudite and phil- 
osophical Paracelsus .f^ Is this a characteristic of 
most of Browning's works .^^ 

On the whole, however, the unity of artistic im- 
pression remains unbroken in "Saul"; and the 
verse, suggesting as it does with its five anapaestic 
beats the slow soft movement of a harpist's accom- 
paniment, is quite in accord with setting and senti- 
ment. One is reminded, with reason, of the not dis- 
similar dactylic movement of the "Iliad," the 
"iEneid," "Hermann und Dorothea," and "Evan- 
geline." In its lyric accompaniment "Saul" is as 
epic as any of these; or as "Beowulf," of which the 
lilt is not unlike that of either the anapaest or the 
dactyl. Is it not fair, then, to say that "Saul" is 
nothing if not gratifying both in message and in 
craftsmanship? 

Questions of this sort would seem naturally to 
suggest themselves even to the least careful reader; 



SAUL 319 

but no effort has been made to present them with 
very much system, — with a system, that is, which 
Gigadibs would style severely "exclusive, conclu- 
sive and decisive" in its terms, — or to consider all 
the questions, or even to select the most important 
ones either here or in the renderings of the other 
poems. This course, as was pointed out at the 
beginning, was taken with set purpose; as the com- 
ments, like the stories themselves, are meant only 
to direct attention anew to the genius and achieve- 
ment of Robert Browning, and to suggest, rather 
than to insist upon, a few salient features of his 
thought and feeling. To have attempted more than 
this might easily have become an affront not only 
to that genius himself, but to all who have the 
desire and the right to discover him for themselves. 
Three words, however, do stand out from the 
pages of Browning; and if they speak clearly here, 
the essential marks of his character will be dis- 
cerned. They are Love, Art, and Faith; and to 
them, all matters of style are wholly subordinate. 
Nor, if a pure categorical with regard to each be 
desired, can it be much amiss to say — 

In Love, have Faith; 
In Art, have Soul; 
In Faith, have Love. 



THE END 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 

Abbot, the, in Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 226, 229. 

Abib, a physician to whom is addressed the letter of Karshish, 

287, 288, 290. 
Abner, welcomes David to Saul's tent, 311. 
Aceldama, epithet applied by Hampden, in Strafford, to Ireland 

under Wentworth's rule, 60. 
Adam, and the earth, opinion of, in Mr. Sludge, " the Medium," 282. 
Mneid, the, dactylic movement of, 318. 
Agnolo, Michel, mentioned in Andrea del Sarto, 233, 236. 
Ahithophel, epithet applied to Went worth, in Strafford, 51, 54. 
Albano, fictile vase found at, 260. 

All-Loving, the, is the All-Great, in An Epistle, 290, 293. 
Allerton, mentioned in Strafford, 116. 
Anacreon's Greek, prized by Bishop Blougram, 260. 
Andrea del Sarto, as interpreted by W. E. H. Lecky, 243. 
Angelico, Brother, mentioned in Fra Lippo Lippi, 242. 
Anne, Strafford's little daughter, sings Italian boat-song in the 

Tower, 144, seq.; during Hollis's visit to Strafford, 148-149; 

sings in room adjoining the cell, 152; protection for, implored 

of the King, 153; committed to Hollis, 153. 
Antichrist, following upon John's ministry, in A Death in the 

Desert, 304. 
Antiochene, John the, in A Death in the Desert, 303. 
Apollo, the Grammarian compared to, 251. 
Argimientation, compared with forms of poetry, xi, xii. 
Arian, an epithet, in Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 227. 
Arianism, how to confound, in Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 

229. 
Ariel, a sprite in thrall to the witch Sycorax, in Caliban upon 

Setebos, 294. 
Anus, followers of, defined, 227. 
Asaph, spirit of, responsive to Sludge, 273. 
Asolo, scene of Pippa Passes, 3, 5, 8, 14, 16. 
As You Like It, sequence of incidents in, 15. 
Atonement, the, query concerning, in Caliban upon Setebos, 299. 
Austin. See Tresham. 
Australia, Gigadibs repairs to, 269, 271. 

Austrian government, plot against, by Luigi, in Pippa Passes, 12. 
Austrian police, on the watch for Luigi, in Pippa Passes, 8. 



322 ANALYTICAL INDEX 

Bacon, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Bactrian, the, a convert who guards the cave where John lies 
dying, in A Death in the Desert, 303-304, 309. 

Baladine, a street singer, in In a Balcony, 176. 

Balfour, Constable of the Tower, Strafford's attendant at his trial, 
129; summoned by Charles to convey the royal pardon of 
Strafford to Parliament, 154. 

Balzac, his fifty volumes, in Bishop Blougram's Apology, 259, 262. 

Bamum, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Beacon Street, Boston, mentioned by Sludge, 285. 

Bedford, accused of conspiracy with the Scots, in Strafford, 108. 

Beethoven, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Benet the Capuchin, mentioned in Pippa Passes, 5. 

Beowulf, its lilt, 318. 

Bethany, scene of the strange experience of Karshish, 287, 288, 291. 

Bible, the, quoted by Sludge, 280; truth of, affirmed by Sludge, 281. 

Bill of Attainder, moved by Pym against Strafford, 117, 128; chills 
Pym's supporters, 133, seq.; to be introduced by Haselrig, 137; 
drawn up by Pym and reported to Charles, 138-139; opposed 
by Charles, 139; voted by Parliament, 142. 

Bill of Rights, mentioned in Strafford, 50, 51, 53, 60. 

Billingsley, commander of a convoy of men procured by Lady 
Carlisle to effect Strafford's escape from the Tower, 155, 156. 

Blackwood's Magazine, an oracle in Bishop Blougram's day, 259; 
Gigadibs a contribution to, 260; Gigadibs does not write up 
Blougram for, 269. 

Blougram, or the Eccentric Confidence, title of a supposed article by 
Gigadibs, 261. 

Bluphocks, a shameless vagabond who attempts to seduce Pippa, 

7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17. I 

Boat-song, Italian, sung by William and Anne to comfort their 
father, Strafford, in the Tower, 144, 147, 152. 

Boston, scene of Mr. Sludge, " the Medium," 272, 281. j 

Bristol, one of the Cabal, in Strafford, 97. | 

Brooke, accused, in Strafford, of conspiracy with the Scots, 108. j 

Browning, doctrine (the effect of absolute truth upon a finite Intel- J 

ligence) presented by, 292, 307-308; epistolary style well simu- j 

lated by, 291; his purpose: in An Epistle, 291; in Bishop Blou- f 

gram's Apology, 271; in Caliban upon Setebos, 300-301; his j 

technique in the dramatic monologue, 309-310; his technique !; 

in the interests of verisimilitude, 308-310; 315-318; in A Death 
in the Desert ascribes to John a knowledge of the skepticism of 
later times, 308; portrays the function of the poet as that of the 
seer, in Saul, 318; character of, 319; suggestiveness of, in Caliban 
upon Setebos, compared with Prometheus Unbound, 301. 

Bryan, one of Strafford's adherents, 109, 112, 116, 157. 

Buonaparte, in Bishop Blougram's day, 259. 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 323 

Cabal, the, or Court Faction, in Strafford, 68, 69, 86, 90, 91, 96, 
97, 98, 104; conspiracy of, with the Scots, 105, 106, 108, 109, 
110; present at Whitehall when Hollis intercedes for Strafford, 
118; furnishes Parliament the " notes " upon which Strafford's 
trial is based, 122, 133. 

Caesar, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Calculus, the Grammarian attacked by, 252. 

Caliban, Shakespeare's, the prototype of Browning's Caliban, 294. 

California, gold-seekers in, mentioned by Sludge the Medium, 284. 

Carbonari, the, served by Luigi in Pippa Passes, 8, 9, 12, 13. 

Carlisle, Lucy Percy, Countess of, friend and confidante to Went- 
worth, Earl of Strafford: welcomes him at Whitehall on his 
return from Ireland, 63-66; suspected of heartlessness by Straf- 
ford, 67; said by the King to have interposed in Strafford's 
behalf, 72; sues Strafford to relinquish his command in the 
North, 89-94; heartens Strafford for his enterprise, 95; expects 
Strafford's return from his command at York, 99-103; pleads 
that the Queen save Strafford from impeachment, 101; welcomes 
Strafford, 104, 105; is instructed by the Queen to keep Strafford 
in ignorance of his impeachment, 106-107; frightened by Straf- 
ford's bold plan of arresting his enemies, 108-110; admires 
Strafford's infatuation for the King, 110-112; seconds Hollis in 
his plea for Strafford's rescue, 118-124; commissioned by the 
King to apprise Strafford of the proposed manoeuver of the 
army under Northumberland, 124; undertakes the mission, 125; 
taunted by the Queen, 125-126; considers revealing the King's 
faithlessness to Strafford, 126; appears veiled at the trial, 129; 
beseeches Strafford's acquiescence in the King's plan of libera- 
tion, 130-132; her scheme of liberating Strafford repudiated by 
Charles, 137; returns to Court with the message of Strafford's 
magnanimity, 140; witnesses the signing of the death-warrant, 
141; devises a new scheme of liberation, 142-144; sustained by 
the strength of unselfish love, 143-144; with a band of armed 
men, appears in the Tower, to rescue Strafford, 155-159. 

Carmine, The, cloister of Fra Lippo Lippi, 238. 

Cerinthus, muses upon the account of John's death in the desert, 
303, 308, 310. 

Charles I, King, in Strafford, assailed by the League, 50; heart- 
ened by Went worth, 53; weakness of, 54; an oath-breaker, 57; 
summons Wentworth from Ireland, 58; Pym's early sympathy 
with, 59; confers Northern Presidency on Wentworth, 60; turns 
Ireland into a "hunting-ground," 60, 64; fascinating personal- 
ity of, 63; wavering character of, 66, 67, 136, 155; receives 
W^entworth on the latter's return from Ireland, 71-74; to make 
war on Scotland, 72; professes trust in Wentworth, 72; confers 
earldom upon Wentworth, 73; consents to calling a Parlia- 
ment, 74; a victim of uxoriousness, 75, 76; assailed in the League, 
76-82; receives Strafford on the latter's second return from Ire- 
land, 82-86; accused of perfidy in altering Strafford's plans and 



324 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 



dissolving Parliament, 84-87; Strafford's infatuation for, 91- 
95, 111, 132-133, 143, 163; summons Parliament, 96; sends for 
Strafford at York, 99 ; at Theobald's when new Parliament meets, 
100; disobeyed by Strafford at Durham, 107-108; to be visited 
by Strafford on latter's return from York, 111; accused by the 
populace of skulking obscurely, 113; Strafford, arrested at 
Parliament, would send message to, 115; spoken of hastily by 
Strafford at Allerton, 116; believed by Strafford to be ready to 
punish the latter's enemies, 116; distrusted by Strafford, 116- 
117; present at Strafford's trial for treason, 117; besought by 
Hollis to end the trial, 118-124; charges Pym with the respon- 
sibility for outcome of trial, 119; stung by Hollis to fear for per- 
sonal safety, 120-121; abandons irresolution on learning that 
the Cabal have furnished incriminating evidence involving him, 
122-124; dispatches Lady Carlisle to Strafford with order plac- 
ing the army at his service, 124-125; accused of infidelity by the 
Queen, 125; prompts Lady Carlisle to quiet Strafford's suspi- 
cions, 126; witnesses the passage of Strafford's Attainder, 127- 
128; his offer of succor rejected by Strafford, 130-132; his 
treachery emphasized by Rudyard and others, 136; repents his 
order of intervention, 137; signs the Bill of Attainder, 138-141; 
Hollis seeks audience with, 141-142; comments on, by William, 
145-146; visits Strafford in the Tower, 147-163; pleads for for- 
giveness, 152-153; would order Parliament to revoke the sen- 
tence, 154; welfare of, entrusted by Strafford to Pym, 159-161; 
execution of, seen in a vision by Strafford, 161. 

Charles's Wain, in Mr. Sludge, ''the Medium,'' 281. 

Chiara, Luigi's sweetheart in Pippa Passes, 9. 

Christ, Arian doctrine concerning, 227; defense of the love and 
power of, in A Death in the Desert, compared with Caliban's 
theology, 301-302; divine love as revealed in, greater than di- 
vine will and might, 307; divinity of, affirmed on the basis of 
love, 308; divinity of, witnessed to by a gloss at close of the 
manuscript account of John's death in the desert, 308, 309; his 
love and power a mere projection of men's selves, 306; John 
bidden by, to teach, in A Death in the Desert, 304; preached by 
Paul on Mars' Hill, in Cleon, 254; in David, in Saul, 314. 

** Christ, See the, stand " — a test of the emotional values of 
Saul, 315-316. 

** Christ? What think ye of," Bishop Blougram's vital question, 
267. 

Cleon, a Greek poet who writes his King a reply concerning the 
relative value of the poet's calling and the continuity of life, 
254-258. 

Comedy, compared with other forms of literature, xii. 

Constance, the Queen's cousin, in love with Norbert, in In a Bat- 
cony, 164-169, 171-194. 

Constancy, Constance's part, in In a Balcony, 182-183, 186-189. 

Conway, mentioned in Strafford, 85, 103, 108. 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 325 

Correggio, mentioned in Bishop Blougram's Apology, 262. 

Cosimo of the Medici, patron of Fra Lippo Lippi, 239, 240. 

Cotnar, liquor drunk by the huntsman in The Flight of the Duchess, 
208. 

Cottington, Francis, Lord, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in Straf- 
ford, 54, 58, 102. 

Council. See Privy Council 

Cousin of Queen Bess, Bishop Blougram styled, 266. 

Covenant, League and, in Strafford, 69, 71. 

Crew, opprobrious name for the League in Strafford, 109, 

Cristina, a coquette beloved by a poet, 219-221. 

Crone, the gypsy, in The Flight of the Duchess, 213-217. 

Customs, Wentworth's share in the, in Strafford, 65. 

David, and Jonathan, Pym and Wentworth likened to, in Straf- 
ford, 159, 160; ministers to Saul, 311-316. 

Da Vinci, as student of anatomy, in James Lee's Wife, 202. 

Death in the Desert, A, inertia the result of a complete knowledge 
of truth, taught in, 292; its teaching concerning the love and the 
power of Christ, compared with Caliban's theology, 301-302. 

Death-warrant for Strafford, 140-143, 151-152. 

Death's spread hand, in In a Balcony, a personification of Fate ? 
— 170, 183, 194. 

Demogorgon, Shelley's, in Prometheus Unbound, 301. 

Development, the moral theme of, 292. 

Dickens, his vogue in Bishop Blougram's day, 259, 260. 

Dolores, a beauty seen from the cloister in Soliloquy of the Spanish 
Cloister, 226, 228. 

Dome (Duomo S. Maria) of Asolo, in Pippa Passes, 4i, 5, 8, 10, 12, 
13, 16. 

Douay, John of, who fashioned the statue of the Great-Duke Fern- 
dinand, in The Statue and the Bust, 206. 

Dniids, 208. 

Dublin, journalism in, in time of Bishop Blougram, 259. 

Duchess, the, in The Flight of the Duchess, 208-218. 

Duchess of Ferrara, the, subject of My Last Duchess, 222-225. 

Duke, the, in The Flight of the Duchess, 208-214, 217-218. 

Duke of Ferrara, the, the speaker in My Last Duchess, 222. 

Durham, Scots engaged by Strafford at, 105, 107. 

Earldom of Strafford, gift to Wentworth for services in Ireland, 64, 

70, 73-74. 
Egypt, a palm from, in In a Balcony, 174. 
Eliot, John, early leader of the League in Strafford, 58, 59, 69, 98. 

139, 157, 160. 
England, Sludge the Medium proposes to flee to, 274. 



326 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 



Ephesus, Pamphylax returns to, in A Death in the Desert, 308. 
Epic, the, compared with other forms of poetry, xii. 
Essex, accused of conspiracy with the Scots, in Strafford, lOS. 
Europe, the spirit of the revival of learning in, portrayed in 

A Grammarian's Funeral, 253. 
Evangeline^ dactylic movement of, 318. 
Eyass, 26. 
Eye-flower, in the Queen's courtyard, in In a Balcony, 164, 191. 

Faction, a name for the League, in Strafford, 65. 

Fate, a motive of feeling and action, in In a Balcony, 170, 194; 
a motive of feeling and action, in Strafford, 54, 68, 69, 89. 

Felippa (Pippa), 1-20. 

Felton, John, assassination of, mentioned in Strafford, 59. 

Ferdinand, Great-Dnke, beloved by the bride of the Riccardi in 
The Statue and the Bust, 204, 205, 206. 

Fichte, deprecated by Bishop Blougram, 267. 

Fiennes, Nathaniel, one of the League, in Strafford, 50, 52, 55, 62, 
71, 77, 78, 133-136. 

Fiesole, scene of Andrea del Sarto, 233, 234. 

Florence, scene of Andrea del Sarto's youth, 233; scene of The 
Statue and the Bust, 204, 206. 

Fontainebleau, Andrea del Sarto at, 233. 

France, coast of, scene of James Lee's Wife, 195; dream of, in 
Bishop Blougram' s Apology, 268; Envoy from, in The Statue 
and the Bust, 205 ; King of, in Andrea del Sarto, 233; Scots 
intrigue with, in Strafford, 71, 72, 73, 87; Lady Carlisle to flee to> 
with Strafford, 143, 156; Straff ord scorns escaping to, 149. 

Francis, King of France, patron of Andrea del Sarto, 233. 

Franklin, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273, 

■Franz, of Austria, in Pippa Passes, 9. 

French novel, in Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 229. 

French painter, of the Queen, in In a Balcony, 178. 

** Friend of friends, my," Charles's crowning approbation of 
Strafford, 111 



Gaddi, Luca, husband of Ottima, in Pippa Passes, 4, 5, 6. 
Galatians, text from, in Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 229. 
Gallery, the screened, in the House of Commons, in Strafford, 

119-120, 127-128. 
Garrard, mentioned in Strafford, 148. 
George, the, decoration conferred upon Wentworth in Straffdrd, 

73, 93, 94; cast away by Strafford, 117. 
Gerard, an old huntsman and warrener, in A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, 

24, 32-34, 42, 45. 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 327 

Gideon, mentioned in Strafford, 57. 

Gigadibs, the guest and interlocutor of Bishop Blougram, 259- 

269; starts for Australia, 269; denies the authority of theology 

when unscientific, 262, 270. 
Giotto, painter of saints, 242; style of, abandoned by Fra Lippo, 

245. 
Glanville, former member of the League in Strafford, 79. 
Gloucester, in King Lear and Caliban, 300. 
Golden Age, the, fostered by Sludge the Medium, 285. 
Goring, one of Strafford's adherents, 110. 
Gottlieb, a student in Pippa Passes, 6. 
Greece, the seventeen isles of, home of Cleon the poet, 254. 
Greek busts. Bishop Blougram proud of his, 259. 
Greek manuscript of A Death in the Desert, 303. 
Greeks, the, in Homer, in Mr. Sludge, " the Medium," 286. 
Greeley's newspaper, exposure of Sludge in, 274. 
Greenwich, Pym's vow at, in Strafford, 54, 68, 69, 89, 159, 162. 
Guendolen. See Tresham. 
Gypsies, description of, in The Flight of the Duchess, 213. 

Haman, epithet applied to Wentworth in Strafford, 51, 54. 

Hamilton, James, Marquis of, mentioned in Strafford, 54, 58, 64. 

Hamlet motivation of group-action in, 16. 

Hamlet's soul, two points in, unseized by the Germans yet, 260. 

Hampden, John, counsellor of moderation in the turbulent meet- 
ings of the League, 50-57, 59-62; mentioned as a patriot by 
Pym, 69, 71; attacked in the League for indirectly aiding Went- 
worth, 78-80; coupled with Pym as a leader in the League, 87; 
accompanies Pym to Whitehall to regain Strafford, 87; aban- 
dons Strafford, 88; helps to eject the Cabal from Parliament, 
97; reported defeated with the League, 113; with the League 
arraigns Strafford for treason, 117; called patriot, 122; sup- 
ports Pym at Strafford's trial, 127, 133; called upon to save 
Strafford, 134-135; remembered by Pym, 139; at the Tower to 
thwart Lady Carlisle's scheme, 159; cursed by Strafford, 162. 

Haselrig, a witness in Strafford's trial, 128, 129; introduces the Bill 
of Attainder, 137. 

Henriette, Queen of England, instigator of the Cabal and enemy to 
Strafford, 61, 63, 64, 67, 74, 75, 76, 86, 91, 93, 98-109, 117-120, 
122-125, 149, 153, 154, 161. 

Herodias, the Prior's niece compared to, in Andrea del SartOti^^. 

Hermann und Dorothea, dactylic movement of, 318. 

Holland, Earl of, 'one of the Cabal in Strafford, 63, 64, 66, 69, 91, 
93, 96-99, 101, 102, 105-107, 118. 

Hollis, Denzil, brother by marriage to Wentworth, Earl of Straf- 
ford, and loyal to him to the end: member of the League, 50; 



3^8 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 



defends Wentworth before the League, 52, 57, 79; asks the King 
for Strafford's release from trial, 118-124; charges the Vanes 
with furnishing notes incriminating Strafford and involving the 
King in perfidy, 122; warns the King of personal danger, 121, 
124; assured that the King will intercede openly at the trial, 120; 
seen with Strafford at the trial, 129; suspected by Strafford, 131; 
scorns Strafford's trust in Charles, 133; deprecates Lady Car- 
lisle's scheme of liberating from the Tower, 142; revolts against 
his commission of informing Strafford of his doom, 141-142, 144; 
implored by Lady Carlisle to help in her scheme, 143-144; ac- 
companied by Charles, visits Strafford in the Tower, 147-163; 
delivers the message, 151-152; confronted with the King's writ- 
ten promise of freedom, 151; entrusted with the care of Straf- 
ford's children, 153; urges Strafford to escape, 156, 157, 158. 

Homer, a mere fiction, says Sludge the Medium, 286; compared 
with Cleon, 256; episodical similes of, 17, 18; his spirit respon- 
sive to Sludge, 273. 

Hoopoe, a bird known to Caliban, 295, 297. 

Horsefall, Hiram H., a client victimized by Sludge, 272, 273. 

House of Privilege, epithet for the royal house, in Strafford, 121. 

Himigruffin, Judge, a type of hardheaded person who, hypotheti- 
cally, fails to expose Sludge the Medium, 276. 

Iliad, the, dactylic movement of, 318. 

In Memoriam, quoted apropos of Caliban's natural theology, 299. 

Intendant, Bishop's, the, the rascally steward of the estate of the 
Bishop's dead brother, in Pippa Passes, 8, 10-13, 15, 17. 

Ireland, misery of, mentioned in Strafford, 53, 60, 64, 75, 77, 79; 
representatives from, in the Parliament that tries Strafford, 117, 
120; thought of by Strafford in the Tower, 145, 146; Went- 
worth, Lord Deputy of, 50, 51, 57, 62, 65, 66, 69, 73, 75, 85, 92. 
110. 

Israel, mentioned in Strafford, 57. 



Jacynth, the huntsman's wife, in The Flight of the Duchess, 208, 

213-215, 218. 
James and Peter, spoken of by John at the time of his death, in 

A Death in the Desert, 304. 
Jerboa, an animal known to David, in Saul, 311, 315. 
Jericho, to Jerusalem, the route of Karshish, as described by him 

in his letter to Abib, 287, 291. 
Jerome, Correggio's, in Bishop Blougram's Apology, 262. 
Jerusalem, from Jericho to, the route of Karshish, as described 

by him in his letter to Abib, 287. 
Jew, a sanguine, description of Lazarus by Karshish, the Arab 

physician, 290, 291. 
Jewry, observations made in, by Karshish, 288, 291. 
Jews, the, dare not, says Sludge, pronounce His name, 283. 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 329 

Job, in a painting by Fra Lippo Lippi, 247. 

John, death of, in A Death in the Desert, 308; explains the purpose 
of the flaws in his gospel, 307; his existence questioned in times 
following his ministry, 305; his supernatural foresight, 305, 308- 
309;' his teaching in A Death in the Desert compared with Cali- 
ban's, 301, 302; says that man is spoon-fed with truth, 270, 
306. 

John Baptist's head, subject for a painting by Fra Lippo, 239. 

John of Douay, sculptor called to fashion the Duke's statue, in The 
Statue and the Bust, 206. 

Johnson, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Jonathan, and David, mentioned in Strafford, 159, 160; his spirit 
responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Jove, a mere projection of man's mind, 306. 

Judas, epithet applied to Went worth in Straff or d, 59; subject Fra 
Lippo Lippi proposes for a painting, 239. 

Jules, a young art student in love with Phene, in Pippa Passes, 
3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 15. 

Juno, a mere projection of man's mind, 306. 

Jupiter, as pictured in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, 301. 

Kaiser of Teuton land, ruler of the Duke's country, in The Flight of 
the Duchess, 209. 

Karshish, an Arab physician who writes to a brother in the profes- 
sion about the resurrected Lazarus, 287-293. 

King Charles I, See Charles I. 

King Lear, motivation of group-action in, 16; quoted apropos of 
one of Caliban's theological ideas, 300. 

Lane, one of Strafford's counsel at the trial, 130-132, 137. 

Lapaccia, Aunt of Fra Lippo Lippi, 241. 

Latin, Fra Lippo's contempt for, 241. 

Laud, WUliam, Archbishop, 54, 58, 61, 63, 68, 70, 72, 73, 83, 102. 
110, 147, 153, 161. 

Laughter, a natural rhyming, xiii. 

Lawrence, Brother, a pious monk and object of jealousy in Solil- 
oquy of the Spanish Cloister, 226-229. 

Lazarus, the subject of An Epistle of Karshish, 287-292. 

League, the, in Strafford, 50-62, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 76-82, 77, 
78, 80, 81, 88, 96, 98, 99, 109, 117, 119; meet to frame a list of 
grievances, 50-62; and Covenant, in Scotland, 54, 71; John Eliot, 
early leader of, 54; Puritan complexion of, 57; Faction, the, 
another name for, 65, 73; People, the, another name for, 65; 
through Pym, implore Wentworth's return to them, 67-71; 
meet to denounce the new Parliament, 76-82; under Pym's 
leadership welcome Strafford at Whitehall, 81-82; are repulsed 



330 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 



by him, 87-89; are in possession in the new Parliament, 96, 98; ar- 
raign Strafford before Parliament, on the charge of treason, 117; 
imputed intent of, to kill Strafford hotly resented by HoUis, 119; 
members of, protest against Strafford's doom, 134-137; its im- 
agined protection scorned by Strafford in the Tower, 152; mem- 
bers of, thwart Lady Carlisle's scheme of rescuing Strafford 
from the Tower, 159. 

Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, quoted apropos of Andrea del 
Sarto and Fra Lippo Lippi, 243, 244. 

Lee, James, estrangement between, and wife, 196. 

Lenthal, accomplice of the Cabal, in Strafford, 96, 97. 

Lippi, Fra Lippo, power of, to interpret God, 246-248; realistic 
features of painting of Saint Laurence at Prato by, 247. 

Locke, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

London, to raise a loan, in Strafford, 85; in danger of attack by the 
Scots, 96, 97, 99; to be put under martial law by Strafford, 110; 
mentioned by Strafford in prison, 148; mentioned in Bishop 
Blougram's Apology, 262. 

London Times, The, an oracle in Bishop Blougram's day, 259. 

Lord-Deputyship of Ireland, office held by Wentworth, in Straf- 
ford, 50,51. 

Lorenzo, Brother, a true painter, in Fra Lippo Lippi, 242. 

Loudon, Earl of, head of the Scots' Commissioners, in Strafford, 
50-52, 55-57. 151. 

Love, All's, yet all's law — the ultimate truth discovered by David 
in ministering to Saul, 313, 316. 

Love, as taught by John, 304; between children and father, 284; 
Christ's divinity affirmed on the basis of, 308; in, have Faith; 
in Art, have Soul; in Faith, have, — a summary of Browning's 
message, 319; the only good, 216; to minister in, the perfection 
of life, 315. (See also Contents, for group themes.) 

Lover, the, the monologuist of Cristina, 219-221. 

Loving, the. See All-Loving. 

Lucrezia, wife of Andrea del Sarto, 233-237. 

Luigi, a Carbonari conspirator, in Pippa Passes, 3, 4, 8, 9, 12, 13, 
15, 16. 

Luther, career of, compared by Bishop Blougram to his own, 266. 

Lutwyche, a rhymester, in Pippa Passes, 7. 

Lyric, the, compared with other forms of poetry, xii. 

Maffeo, the Bishop's Intendant, in Pippa Passes, 8, 10-13, 15, 17. 
Magna Charta, mentioned in Strafford, 54. 

Magnolia-bell, in the Queen's courtyard, in In a Balcony, 164, 191. 
Magnum et terribile, the, now no more, says Sludge, 283. 
Mainwaring, one of Strafford's adherents, 109, 110, 112, 115, 116. 
Mandeville, accused of conspiracy with the Scots, in Strafford, 108. 
Manes, followers of, defined, 227. 



ANALYTICAL INDEX bl 

Manichee, an epithet of opprobrium, used in Soliloquy of the Span- 
ish Cloister, 227, 229. 

Mars' Hill, mentioned in Cleon, 254. 

Martagon, the turban-flower in Pippa's window, 3, 18. 

Mary, Queen of Scots, her spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Maxwell, Usher of the Black Rod, struck by Strafford, 112; sup- 
ported by the Presbyterians and assailed by Strafford's follow- 
ers, 113-114; arrests Strafford, 115; ushers Strafford from the 
Hall after the trial, 129. 

Mental suggestion, power of, in Pippa Passes, 20. 

Mertoun, Henry, Earl of, in A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, 23-26, 28- 
30, 38-43; sues for Mildred's hand, 24-26; clandestine meeting 
of, with Mildred, 29-32; Gerard a witness of, 32-34; last tryst 
and death of, 39-43. 

Methodist Hymnal, quoted apropos of Caliban's theology, 299. 

Metre, and rhyme, a natural expression of emotion, xii-xiii. 

Michael's foot on the dragon, a symbol of faith triumphant, in 
Bishop Blougrams Apology, 267. 

Middle Age, the, customs of, copied by the Duke, in The Flight of 
the Duchess, 210, 212; the fleshly artist of, in Fra Lippo Lippi, 
243; the pure faith of, ridiculed by Bishop Blougram, 267. 

Midianite, the, mentioned in Strafford, 57. 

Mildred. See Tresham. 

Milton, episodical similes of, 17; his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Miracles, John explains the value of, 306. 

Miranda, Prosper's daughter, in Caliban upon Setebos, 294, 296. 

Moldavia, liquor drunk by the huntsman, in The Flight of the 
Duchess, 208. 

Monologue, the technique of the dramatic, 309-310. 

Monsignor the Bishop, in Pippa Passes, 3, 4, 10-13, 15, 16. 

MoreUo, mountain near Fiesole, 233, 236. 

Napoleon, ideal imputed to Gigadibs by Bishop Blougram, 265. 

Natalia, procuress, in Pippa Passes, 7, 8. 

Nature, Fra Lippo's teaching about, and Art, 245. 

Nazarene physician, the, in An Epistle, 287, 289, 290, 291. 

Nemesis, Pym assumes the r6le of, in Strafford, 89, and completes 
it, 161-162; Vane tells the story of, 55-56. See also Fate. 

New York, journalism in, in time of Bishop Blougram, 259. 

Noodledom, the Middle Age an age of, 267. 

Norbert, a brilliant young diplomat in love with Constance, in In a 
Balcony, 164-178, 180-194. 

Northumberland, Percy, Lord, Lady Carlisle's brother, in Straf- 
ford, 83, 90, 124. 

Notes, containing incriminating evidence at Strafford's trial, 122, 
129, 132, 135. 



332 ANALYTICAL INDEX 

Oak-galls, mentioned in Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 228. 

Ore, a sea mammal known to Caliban, 295, 298. 

Orcanai valley of, through which Pippa passes from Ottima's house 

at Asolo to Jules's house at Possagno, 4, 6, 8. 
Ormond, one of Strafford's lieutenants in Ireland, 85, 110. 
Orsay, Count d', in Bishop Blougram's day, 259. 
Orson the wood-knight, alluded to in The Flight of the Duchess, 

218. 
Othello, sequence of incidents in, 15; motivation of group-action 

in, 16. 
Ottima, wife of Luca Gaddi and mistress of Sebald, in Pippa Passes, 

3-6, 12-13, 15, 19. 
Outward-bound, The, title suggested by Gigadibs, 261, 269. 

Padua, seen from Asolo, in Pippa Passes, 5. 

Paine, Tom, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Pamphylax, dictator of the manuscript account of John's death in 
the desert, 303, 308, 309; ministers to John, 303; goes to fight 
the beasts, 308; becomes incorporate with Christ, 308. 

Pandolf, Fra, painter of the Duchess's portrait, in My Last Duch- 
ess, 223-225. 

Paris, King Francis in, in Andrea del Sarto, 233, 234; the young 
Duke in, in The Flight of the Duchess, 210. 

Parliament, at Westminster, in Strafford, 50, 53, 59, 65, 73, 74, 
76-81, 84, 97-100, 102-103, 106, 109-110, 116, 123-124, 129, 
134, 140, 142, 154; in Ireland, 73, 80, 83; Scots', 55, 56, 57, 62. 

Parma marble, mentioned in Bishop Blougram's Apology, 262. 

Patmos, island where John composed his gospel, 303, 304. 

Paul, Saint, opposed to Strauss, in Bishop Blougram's Apology, 
266; Sludge the Medium compares himself with, 278. 

Paulus, inquired about by Protus in a letter to Cleon, 254, 255; 
subject of Cleon's reply, 258, 

Peter and James, spoken of by John at the time of his death, 304. 

Petition of Right. See Bill of Rights. 

Petraja, in the Apennines, a visit proposed to, in The Statue and 
the Bust, 205. 

Phene, beloved of Jules, in Pippa Passes, 3, 4, 6-8, 13, 15, 16. 

Phidias, compared with Cleon, 256. 

Phoebas, the account of John's death dictated to, 303, 308. 

Phoebus, the sculptor of, 257. 

Pippa Passes: intellectual content of, xiv, 20; significance of title of , 
xiv, 12, 13; central idea of, xiv, 13; dramatic element in, xiv, 13; 
in part a lyrical soliloquy, 13; emotional values of, xiv, 14; veri- 
similitude in, xiv, 15; plotof, xiv, 14, 16, 17, 18; organic pictures 
and similes in, 17, 18; pathetic fallacy in, 17, 18; power of men- 
tal suggestion portrayed in, 1, 20. 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 333 

Plena gratia, Ave, Virgo ! prayer at Vespers, in Soliloquy of the 
Spanish Cloister, 229. 

Poecile, covered with storied paintings, in Cleon, 255. 

Poetry, aesthetic elements of, 14, 20; distinguished from prose xi; , 
emotional and intellectual elements of, xi, xii-xiv, 14, 20; how 
to read, xii-xiv; moral values of, 20. 

Pompey, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Pope, the, and Gigadibs, 259. 

Possagno, scene of marriage of Jules andPhene, inPippaPasses, 4, 6. 

Presbyterian Hymnal, the, quoted apropos of Caliban's natural 
theology, 299. 

Presbyterian Party, the, in Strafford, 50, 112, 113, 115, 116. 134. 

Presidency of the North, the, oflBce held by Wentworthin Strafford, 
51, 60, 62, 66, 100. 

Prior, the, bids Lippo daub away, 241; niece of, painted, 242; bids 
Lippo paint men's souls, 242; tells how to paint the soul, 244; 
on the function of art, 244; pulpit-place of, taken by Lippo, 246; 
censures Lippo for not instigating to prayer, 246. 

Privy Council, in Strafford, 57, 63, 66, 68, 75, 76, 80, 82. 

Prometheus, the fire brought by, compared to Christ's good to 
men, 305. 

Prometheus Unbound, Shelley's, compared with Caliban upon 
Setebos, 301. 

Prose, intellectual content of, xi. 

Prosper, Caliban's master, 294, 296, 297. 

Protus, King, addressed in a letter by Cleon, 254. 

Providence, seen at first only in catastrophes, says Sludge the 
Medium, 283; the need of, asserted by Sludge, 282. 

Prynne, his steeple hat, in Strafford, 150. 

Puritan complexion of the League, in Strafford, 57, 58, 78, 113, 
114, 150. 

Pym, John, leader of the League and of the movement against 
Strafford, 52; defends Wentworth before the League, 57-62; 
forced at Greenwich to forego Wentworth's friendship, 56, 60; 
seeks Wentworth at Whitehall, 62; Wentworth's concern for, 
65-66; beseeches Wentworth to return to the League, 67-71; 
Wentworth twitted for being seen with, 73; announces that 
Wentworth will return to the League, 78; supported by Hollis, 
79; again defends] Wentworth, 80-81; persuades the [League to 
welcome Wentworth at Whitehall, 82; repulsed by Strafford, 87- 
89; assumes the part of avenging Fate, 89; feared by Strafford, 
90, 93, 95; ejects the Court Cabal from Parliament, 96, 98; 
feared by the Queen, 99,100, 102; his power to frighten Strafford, 
denied by Lady Carlisle, 103; the Queen's view of, pitted against 
Strafford in Parliament, 104; accused by Strafford of con- 
spiracy with the Scots, 108; to be subjected to the ordeal of 
arrest by Strafford, 111; partisans of, wish him to prevent the 
threatened coming of Strafford's army, 112; downfall of, ex- 



334 ANALYTICAL INDEX 

pected by one of Strafford's followers, 112; derisively called 
" King Pym," 113; assails Strafford as traitor in the House of 
Lords, 114; feared by Strafford, 116; stands at the bar where 
Strafford kneels, accepting trial, 117; moves a Bill of Attainder 
against the Earl, 117, 127-128; champion of the League, 118; 
charged by Charles with the intent of killing Strafford, 119; 
charged by Hollis with engrossing the King's attention at the 
trial, 120; indictment of Strafford by, based on worn-out law, 
121, 134, 136; aided in the prosecution by Charles, 122; styled 
patriot by Hollis, 122; arraigns Strafford in a speech of pro- 
phetic fire, 127; sends for Haselrig, 128-129; laccused of quailing 
under Strafford's eye, and of unfitness as Eliot's successor, 130, 
131; has imprisoned the best witness of the defense, 131; him- 
self to be impeached, 131; Strafford accepts trial by, from 
patriotic motives, 131-132; provided by Vane with important 
notes against Strafford, 132-133, 135; declared a truer friend 
to Strafford than the King, 133; abjured by Strafford forever, 
133; besought by the League to revoke the Bill of Attainder, but 
declines, 133-137; intimidates the King into signing Strafford's 
attainder, 138-141; not to be outwitted by Lady Carlisle, 142; 
** Patriot," Strafford's query in the Tower, 147; to be reconciled 
to Strafford, 147-148; suspected by Strafford of willingness to 
offer the latter freedom at the price of renouncing the King, 152; 
thwarts Lady Carlisle's scheme of effecting Strafford's escape, 
159; aflSrms his old love for Strafford and his hope of soon meet- 
ing him " gloriously renewed " in the other world, 159-160; 
entrusted by Strafford with the King's safety, 161; declares he 
will sacrifice the King if need be, 161-162. 

Queen, the, in In a Balcony, in love with Norbert, 164-182, 184-194. 
Qmet, the, Caliban's god above Setebos, 296, 297, 298. 
Quitch, a weed of the desert, 304, 309. 

Radcliffe, a witness in Strafford's trial, ISl, 153. 
Rafael, mentioned in Andrea del Sarto, 233, 236. 
Rationalism in Europe, by W. E. H. Lecky, quoted apropos of 

Andrea del Sarto and Fra Lippo Lippi, 243-244. 
Rhyme, the significance of, xii-xiv. 
Ribbon, as for a, the Queen has worn: Constance to Norbert in 

In a Balcony, 172-174, 178. 
Riccardi, the husband, in The Statue and the Bust, 204, 205. 
Richelieu, term used ironically in Strafford to designate one of 

Charles's imagined advisers, 148. 
Ripen, mentioned in Strafford, 108. 

Robbia, sculptor of the lady, in The Statue and the Bust, 206. 
Roman persecution, the, at the time of John's death, 305, 309. 
Roman spy, a, Lazarus declared, 288. 
Rome, mentioned in Bishop Blougram's Apology, 262; on the 

march to stamp out Bethany* 289. 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 335 

Romish church, the, Blougram a bishop of, 259. 

Rose, a, Constance hands Norbert, in In a Balcony, 167; as the 

symbol of Constance's self, 173. 
Rubens, paintings by, in In a Balcony, 165, 168, 185. 
Rudyard, Benjamin, one of the League, in Strafford, 50, 52, 54, 55, 

57, 59, 60, 77-81, 113, 133, 134, 136. 
Runnymede, mentioned in Strafford, 54. 
Russia, dream of, in Bishop Blougrarns Apology, 268. 
Russian Hymn, and Caliban's natural theology, 299. 

Saint Ambrose, in a painting by Fra Lippo Lippi, 247. 

St. Antholin's, mentioned in Strafford, 155. 

St. Gothard, crossed by Bishop Blougram, 259-260. 

Saint Jerome, painted by Fra Lippo Lippi, 240. 

Saint John, in a painting by Fra Lippo Lippi, 247, 248. 

St. John, enemy to Strafford, 113; Solicitor- General at the trial, 133. 

Saint Laiirence, church mentioned in Fra Lippo Lippi, 240. 

Saint Mark's, seen from Asolo, in Pippa Passes, 5. 

Samuel, appearing to Saul, cited by Sludge the Medium, 280, 

Sanchicha, a beauty seen from the cloister in Soliloquy of ike 

Spanish Cloister, 226, 228. 
Sant' Ambrogio, Fra Lippo's painting in, 247-248. 
Santa Claus, as true to grown-ups as to children, says Sludge, 281. 
Satan, compact with, in Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 227, 229. 
Saul, a dramatic lyric or monologue, 13; imagery of, 316-317; its 

unity of impression, 318. 
Saul, appearance of Samuel's ghost to, cited by Sludge, 280; his 

spirit responsive to Sludge, 273; stirred by David, 311-318. 
Savile, Lord, one of the Cabal, in Strafford, 63, 64, 66, 69, 72, 92, 

96-99, 101, 102, 105-109, 118. 
Saye, accused of conspiracy with the Scots, in Strafford, 108. 
Schramm, a German student, in Pippa Passes, 6. 
Scotland, Commissioners from, to the League, in Strafford, 50, 54, 

56, 57, 61; Parliament in, 55, 57, 62; representatives from, in the 

Parliament that tries Strafford, 117, 120; war with, in Strafford, 

60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 70, 72, 75-78, 81-83, 85-88, 90, 93, 94, 96, 97, 

99, 103, 105, 109, 116. 
Sebald, paramour to Ottima, in Pippa Passes, 3-5, 12, 13, 15, 19. 
Sejanus, term used, ironically in Strafford to designate one of 

Charles's imagined advisers, 148. 
Setebos, a god in Caliban's theology, 296-300. 
Shakespeare, and Caliban's theology, 300; career of, compared by 

Bishop Blougram to his own, 265-266; his spirit resp>onsive to 

Sludge, 273; able to create a Bishop, but not to be one, 271. 
Shelley, his Prometheus Unbound compared with Caliban upon 

Setebos, 301. 



336 ANALYTICAL INDEX 

Ship-money, mentioned in Strafford, 62, 79, 80, 103. 

Slingsby, one of Strafford's adherents, 116; Strafford's secretary 
at the trial, 129, 130. 

Slum and Cellar, The, or Whitechapel Life Limned after Dark, title 
of Gigadibs's literary best, 260. 

Sobbing, a natural rhyming, xiii. 

Spain, dream of, in Bishop Blougram's Apology, 268. 

Spenser, episodical similes of, 17. 

Star Chamber, the, in Strafford, 79. 

Stedman, Edmmid Clarence, quoted, 15, 318. 

Strafford, Earl of, hero of drama by that name, 50-163, as Vis- 
count Wentworth, 50-74; as Lord Deputy of Ireland, 50-51, 67, 
69, 76, 82; as. President of the North, 51, 60, 62, 66, 100; created 
Earl, 73-74; having resumed work in Ireland, returns again, 
76, 82; denounced by League for calling Parliament, 78, 79, 80; 
defended by Pym, 81, 82; received by King and finds plans for 
war with Scotland frustrated, 82, 83; affirms loyalty to Charles, 
83, 84; warns King of impending ruin, 85; accuses King of per- 
fidy, 86, 87; rejects the advances of Pym, 87-89; reaffirms loy- 
alty to the King, 88, 111, 154; abandoned by Pym, 89; besought 
by Lady Carlisle to relinquish his command against Scotland, 
89-94; repulsed in the North, 96; threatened with impeachment, 
99; summoned by the King, 99; present at Whitehall, 104-107; 
informs Lady Carlisle of his disobedience to the King at Dur- 
ham, and his intention of arresting the leaders of the Cabal and 
the League, for conspiracy with the Scots, 108-110; goes to 
Westminster to make the arrest, 112; encounters Maxwell, the 
Usher, 112; is ejected from Parliament and resists arrest, 114- 
115; would apprise the King, 115-116; demands first that his 
followers, then that the Presbyterians, slay him, 116; suspects 
the King of perfidy, 116-117; is tried, 117-133; Hollis and Lady 
Carlisle intercede for, before the King, 118-124; rejects the 
King's offer of liberation presented by Lady Carlisle, 130; plans 
a counter-charge of treason, 131; his admiration for Lady Car- 
lisle, 131; his supreme faith in Charles, 132-133; members of the 
League beseech Pym to show mercy to, 133-137; his Attainder 
sanctioned by Charles, 138-141; championed by Lady Carlisle, 
140-141; imprisoned in the Tower, 142; Lady Carlisle's plan to 
rescue, 142-144; Hollis to apprise, of his doom, 141-142; com- 
forted in prison by his children, 144-145; visited by the King in 
disguise, with Hollis, 147; demands the expected order of re- 
lease, 149-150; informed of his doom, 151; besought by Charles 
for pardon, 152; expresses concern for his children, 152-153; 
Charles's grief for, 154; implored by Lady Carlisle to flee, 
155-158; confronted at the river door by Pym and associates, 
159-160; is resigned to his death, 160; horrified at a prophetic 
vision of Charles on the scaffold, 161; pleads in vain in the King's 
behalf, 162; goes to the scaffold, 163. 

Stratford, Shakespeare's house in, cited by Bishop Blougram, 265. 



ANALYTICAL INDEX 337 

Strauss, advent of, said by Bishop Blougram to have proved 

Luther's failure, 266. 
Subsidies, mentioned in Strafford, 77, 79, 81, 85, 99. 
Swedenborg, Sludge compares himself with, 278. 
Sycorax, Caliban's mother, 294. 
Syrian, a, the messenger to whom Karshish entrusts his letter, 287. 

Taxes, mentioned in Strafford, 65, 80. 

Tempest, The, Browning's source for his own Caliban, 294. 

Tennyson, and Caliban's theology, 299. 

Terpander, compared with Cleon, 256. 

Teuton land, scene of The Flight of the Duchess, 209. 

Theobald's, the manor of Charles I in Hertfordshire, in Strafford, 
100, 101, 149. 

Theotypas, the gloss of, on the manuscript of A Death in the Desert, 
309, 310. 

Timbuctoo, dream of, in Bishop Blougram's Apology, 268. 

Tragedy, compared with other forms of literature, xii. 

Tresham, Austin, brother to Thorold and Mildred Tresham and 
cousin to Guendolen Tresham, to whom betrothed, in A Blot in 
the 'Scutcheon, 23-26, 36-38, 42-43, 48-49. 

Tresham, Guendolen, cousin to Earl Tresham, and betrothed to 
his brother Austin, in A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, 23-29, 34-38, 42, 
44, 47-49. 

Tresham, Mildred, young sister of Earl Tresham, in A Blot in the 
'Scutcheon, 23-35, 37-39, 44-48; Mertoun sues for hand of, 24- 
26; clandestine meeting of, with Mertoun, 29-32; sin of, 30-32; 
Gerard a witness to, 32-34; confronted by Thorold, 35-37; last 
tryst and death of, 44-48. 

Tresham, Thorold, Earl, in A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, 23-30, 32, 34- 
40, 43-49; receives Henry, Earl of Mertoun, as suitor for Mil- 
dred's hand, 24-26; learns of Mildred's tryst with Mertoun, 32- 
34; confronts Mildred, 35-37; witnesses Mertoun's tryst, and 
kills Mertoun, 39-43; takes poison and dies, 43-49. 

Trinity, illustrated, in Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 227, 229. 

Triton, the fountain in the courtyard, in In a Balcony, 179. 

Troy, the romance of, never was, says Sludge, the Medium, 286. 

Turban-flower, the martagon in Pippa's window, 3, 18. 

Tussis, the Grammarian attacked by, 252. 

Tyne, the, passes of, mentioned in Strafford, 85, 103. 

Urganda, one of Tresham's horses, in A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, 27. 
Utopia, Sludge considers himself helpful in bringing about, 285. 
Uz, the man of, in a painting by Fra Lippo Lippi, 247. 

Valens, one of the four who minister to John at his death, 303. 



338 ANALYTICAL INDEX 

Vane, Henry, Sir, Secretary to the King and member of the Cabal, 
or Court Faction, in Strafford; 63, 64, 66, 69, 85, 86, 90-93, 96, 
98-103, 105-107, 118, 122, 124, 125, 126, 129, 132, 133, 157. 

Vane, Harry, the younger, in the League, leader of the party 
opposed to Wentworth, in Strafford: 50-57, 59-62, 71, 77-82, 87, 
88, 97, 113, 133-136, 159, 162. 

Venice, mentioned in Pippa Passes, 6, 8; in Strafford, 145. 

Via Larga, square in Florence where stands the statue of the Great- 
Duke Ferdinand, 204, 206. 

Vicenza, seen from Asolo, in Pippa Passes, 5. 

Vienna, mentioned in Pippa Passes, 9. 

Virgin, the, painted in the Middle Ages, 243. 

Wanderford, death of, mentioned in Strafford, 153. 

Warwick, accused of conspiracy with the Scots, in Strafford, 108. 

Wentworth, Viscount, 50-57, 59-65, 67, 68-76, 78; created Earl of 
Strafford, 73-74; Lord Deputy of Ireland, 50, 51, 67, 69, 75, 76, 
82; President of the North, 51, 60, 62, 66, 100; denounced in the 
League, 50, 51, 54, 59; threatened by Pym, 56, 89; brother-in- 
law to Denzil Hollis, 50, 52; a framer of the Bill of Rights, 51; 
returns from Ireland, 57, 63,66,82; rule of, in Ireland, 60,64,65, 
69, 73, 75, 77, 79, 85; received at Whitehall by Lady Carlisle, 
62-66; meets Pym, 67-71; received by the King, 71; the prey 
of intrigue, 63-67, 72; urges calling of Parliament, 73; name used 
by Pym and Strafford in farewell 160, 162. See also Strafford. 

Wentworth, Strafford's estate, 148. 

Wesley, his spirit responsive to Sludge, 273. 

Westminster Hall, in Strafford, 96, 98, 112, 126, 132, 133, 137. 
142. 

Weston, Treasurer for Charles I, in Strafford, 67. 

Whitehall, Palace of Charles I, mentioned in Strafford, 50, 53, 57, 
63, 76, 82, 95, 98, 99, 102, 112, 113, 117, 118, 128, 137, 141, 148. 

William, Strafford's son, sings Italian boat-song in the Tower, 144, 
seg; present during Hollis's visit to Strafford, 148, 149; sings in 
a room adjoining the cell, 152; protection for, implored of the 
King, 153; entrusted to Hollis, 153. 

Wilmot, cavalry officer, in Strafford, 85. 

Windebank, of the royalist party, in Strafford, 102. 

Xanthus, ministers to John at the latter's death; afterwards burned 
at the stake, in A Death in the Desert, 303, 309. 

York, Strafford's headquarters in the Scot's war, 102, 103, 104, 110, 
116. 

Zeus, no future state revealed to Cleon by, 257. 



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